Week 3 saw the Commanders back at home for a bout against the heavy weight Buffalo Bills. The Bills struggled in week 1 behind a terrible game from QB Josh Allen, they bounced back nicely week 2 vs Las Vegas, but Washington was 2-0 coming off an impressive offensive comeback in the mile high city. Some Washington fans felt this game was a winnable game, but the team had to be firing on all cylinders. It’s safe to say that was not the case, lets dive into the chaos.
The offense struggled to generate anything all day, they finished with just 230 total yards and 3 garbage time points. The day becomes worse when you see that the team rushed for 105 of those 230 yards, but on just 13 attempts, this equals out to 8.1 yards per carry. Looking at the final score of 37-3, you would think it was a blowout that prevented Washington from sticking to their run, but that is far from the case. Despite a 4 int day from Howell, and a lost fumble from running back Antonio Gibson, Washington trailed just 16-0 with 3 minutes left in the 3rd Quarter. The Gibson fumbled turned into a Bills touchdown to make it 23-0, but Washington had failed to consistently use Brain Robinson, despite him torching the Bills every time he touched the ball to the tune of 7 yards per carry. This is combined with the offensive line struggling at times in pass protection and Sam Howell showing some of the flaws that made him a 5th round pick. It is easy to blame the line when sacks happen, but Washington had a trio of issues that compacted into 9 sacks on the day. Two of them can fall back to offensive coordinator and assistant head coach Eric Bieniemy (EB). Right tackle Andrew Wylie has been awful in pass protection through 3 weeks, center Nick Gates has been up and down, Sam Cosmi has been stout at right guard and Saahdiq Charles has shown a lot of promise at left guard. Charles Leno is a fine LT, he is certainly no Trent Williams and a product of him not being a top-notch guy means he will give you some bad reps each week. But 80-90% of the game Leno is giving you above average play at LT, he is getting older and does need a replacement, but he’s doing his job. Let’s turn the clock back here for a minute, I love Sam Howell. I truly believe he has all the tools to be a franchise QB, he can make all of the throws, he has a cannon for an arm, and he’s mobile, everything you want in the modern NFL at the QB position. Yet, he fell to the 5th round, why? I do not think draft position is a great indicator of potential success, but in a QB driven league why would a QB with all the tools fall, we know team’s overdraft QBs every single draft.
One of Sams biggest weaknesses while at UNC was his pocket awareness and inability to see everything processing in front of him. The data through 3 weeks is trending in the same direction for Sam as a pro. This is something that he has to start to improve on immediately if he wants to reach his potential, which I think is an elite QB. Now, let’s take a look at Sams stats here through 3 weeks of football, do we see any similarities?
Taking a look at the first of these two graphics, both of which I got from Zachary Krueger on twitter @ZK_FFB per PFF, it shows that Sam Howell had the 9th most time to throw the ball in week 3 at 2.82 seconds on average.
Now as we take a look at this graphic, we need to also look back to the college mock. This graphic shows that although Sam Howell has had the 9th most time to throw, he is 2nd worst to only Russell Wilson in the percentage of plays in which the QB was deemed responsible for the pressure. Sam was sacked a whopping 9 times vs the Bills, surely, they cannot all be his fault. They were not all on him but take a look at the times for each of these sacks.
- 3.2 seconds
- 3.96 seconds
- 3.22 seconds
- 3.3 seconds
- 2.26 seconds
- 2.89 seconds
- 4.06 seconds
- 3.88 seconds
- 3.08 seconds
Using 2.75 seconds as a minimum, which was Lamar Jackson’s average time to throw, good for 10th on the day, only one of those sacks would fall below the average time of the top 10 lines in week 3. Using the top average time to throw, Wilson’s 3.19 seconds, only 3 of these sacks happened faster than the best pass protection the NFL had to offer on Sunday. Watching at the game or at home, everything happens so fast, it’s easy to point at the o-line. Andrew Wylie has been awful in pass protection through 3 weeks, but Sam is holding onto that thing for far too long at times, but it is not entirely on the young signal caller. Earlier I mentioned that 2 of the 3 issues that resulted in the Commanders giving up 9 sacks and getting blown out could fall back to the OC, EB. You have a running back that is gashing the defense every touch, and a young QB playing a bad game with inconsistency along your o-line in pass protection, run the ball EB! The gameplan for the day was confusing at times, the run game was cooking premium Wagyu, while the passing game was setting the kitchen on fire trying to make toast. It felt like EB just did not want to help Sam out at times by leaning on the run. Another thing we can possibly look at EB for is Sam’s sack times. While he does have issues dating back to UNC with this, the Commanders being 2nd to last here, is more on the man who’s creating the scheme.
I have a hard time believing that Terry McLaurin, Jahan Dotson, Curtis Samuel, and Dyami Brown cannot get open, I think EB needs to scheme some quicker routes for the benefit of everyone. This graph is strictly weeks 1-2, but if you watch the All-22 tape, you will see this same trend continued, and we have an example of it here. Take a look at this snap, Dyami Brown is starting to spring free in the bottom left corner here but look how deep all of the receivers already are as Brown is becoming a dump off option.
As we can see, this play is taking time to develop, Dyami does not yet have his head around looking for the ball, and left tackle Charles Leno is starting to lose his matchup, despite holding up for close to 3 seconds by now. In my opinion, this is a coverage sack/bad play call or design. The o-line holds for longer than league average, nobody is open, and Sam has no clue a rusher is coming off his blindside edge. That last point is another issue that Sam is struggling with, no internal clock. Rather you have the best o-line, the worst, or anything in between, as a QB you have to know that around 2.5 seconds something needs to happen. If you’re lucky enough to actually see 3 seconds, you cannot be standing still in the pocket.
There is a lot of adjusting going in the Commanders offense, Cosmi shifting to right guard, Charles taking over at left guard, Nick Gates taking over at center, and Andrew Wylie coming in at right tackle. Charels Leno is the only o-linemen starting at the same position, EB took control over the offense, Sam Howell was starting his 4th NFL game. We knew there would be hiccups, and while I certainly hope it’s not another 3 or 4 interception outing, I expect some more ugly games from Sam. I also expect some good games because he can play QB at a high level when it’s clicking. Adjustments will be made; I have confidence in both EB and Sam to get things right moving forward. If Sam can clean up some of his bad tendencies, the sacks will slow, and we will have a better idea of where this o-line truly stands. Fans crave a franchise QB in DC, so I get that it is hard to hear be patient or give it time. The reality is, we do need to be patient and let this thing play out for at least the season, it’s the only way to truly know what we have in Howell. Washington heads to Philly next week, and that will be another tall task for this o-line and Sam to deal with. A big bounce back game would put the Commanders right back on the map.