The Washington Commanders had achieved almost every part proper throughout the 2024 NFL offseason, from hiring Adam Peters as GM to placing an elite employees round new HC Dan Quinn to signing a free agent class consisting of Zach Ertz, Austin Ekeler and Bobby Wagner, amongst others.
Then on Thursday, the crew took its first unsuitable flip by buying and selling final 12 months’s beginning QB Sam Howell.
The discourse surrounding Howell in D.C. — because it tends to be no matter who Washington’s QB is — had grown past tiresome, with opposing camps firmly entrenched each within the positions of holding him and of drafting his alternative.
These considering with their brains as an alternative of their feelings would understand that no draft prospect is a positive factor and that Howell was put in a near-impossible state of affairs in 2023, a state of affairs wherein he confirmed sufficient to at the very least stay on the roster.
Alas, it is comprehensible {that a} new administration group would wish to begin over with a clean slate, which has confirmed to be the case with Washington’s barrage of roster cuts and free agent signings. The addition of veteran Marcus Mariota as a presumed backup appeared to sign the tip of Howell’s time in D.C., and now it is official.
The Commanders will now set their sights on choosing their subsequent long-term QB venture with the No. 2 general choose in April’s draft, which is more likely to be both North Carolina’s Drake Maye or LSU’s Jayden Daniels. It is value noting that Maye was Howell’s backup at UNC earlier than Howell entered the draft.
Maye may turn into a franchise QB, or he may additionally turn into Mitch Trubisky. Daniels could possibly be the subsequent Lamar Jackson, or he could possibly be the subsequent Trey Lance. Till there may be tape of them taking part in within the NFL, nobody can know for positive.
There’s tape of Howell taking part in within the NFL, and it is clear from watching it that the instruments are there. The teaching and confidence was not, nor was the notion of him having earned Washington’s persistence, just because he was drafted as a fifth-round choose.
Howell will go down as a sufferer of circumstances in D.C., and the crew should now hope that whichever signal-caller it selects at No. 2 finally ends up paying off — in any other case the implications could possibly be expensive.
