Sam Howell profile: Why the Washington Commanders drafted the QB in the 2022 NFL Draft
The Washington Commanders picked Sam Howell with the 144th pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.
Howell stands at 6’0” and weighs in at 220 pounds. A top-100 overall recruit in 2019 as a dual-threat quarterback, Howell put up great numbers in his first year at North Carolina and looked like a potential future first-round pick as soon as he stepped on the field, throwing for 3,641 yards and 38 touchdowns compared to only seven picks, making him the ACC Rookie of the Year.
The following year, his average yards per attempt went up by nearly two yards and his completion percentage by 6.7 percent. At the same time, his TD and INT ratios stayed about the same, leading to second-team all-conference honors.
Unfortunately, his worst season came as a junior, when he put up career-lows in passing yards, yards per attempt, and touchdowns, but a career-high nine picks. However, the one part of his game that saw a drastic improvement was his running, where he went from 181 yards prior on less than a yard per attempt to 828 yards and 11 touchdowns, at 4.5 yards per attempt.
Sam Howell's strengths
The ball comes off Howell’s hand with plenty of zipping. You saw a bunch of passes over the middle that got there before the safety was able to barrel down, and they’re placed low so the ball doesn’t pop up as the hit arrives. The same is true in the RPO game, to take advantage of the soft spots between the second and third levels.
North Carolina threw a bunch of quick screens (at least in 2019 and ’20), and Howell’s receivers consistently had that extra split second to operate because of how quickly the ball got there.
He can ride the back on play-action from the gun one way and then flip his base around to deliver the ball to a deep-out route right on the money.
Howell loves to take vertical shots and delivers those high-arcing throws with buttery touch after hopping up into the pocket. He’s arguably been the number one deep ball passer in college football throughout his career. That reflects itself in an average target depth of 11.7 yards last season.
You see the throwing power when he takes an extra hitch for a deep curl from the opposite hash and can get it there before the defenders re-enter the picture.
He has the arm talent to test the defense with off-platform throws. Through three seasons at UNC, Howell totaled 86 big-time throws – the most by any quarterback in the 2022 NFL Draft class. However, he also understands when to take some RPMs off the ball, as he flips it to his running back in the flats or on angle routes.
Howell had some of the best footwork one can remember from a first-year student, and his cleats are firmly planted into the turf when he releases the ball. Overall he’s a light mover on the ball of his feet and can make those subtle sideways movements to get the ball off cleanly, even though he knows he’ll get blasted.
The Tar Heel coaches asked him to make full-field reads in 2020, and he has shown the ability to work deep into his progressions when given time.
Howell dictated how his receivers should address the football, putting it low away from contact, slowing them down against zone coverage, and not allowing ancillary coverage to crowd the catch window.
He can add whippy shoulder fakes to get defenders to jump routes and open up opportunities to loft the ball behind them. He’s not afraid to put the ball up there and give his receivers a chance to make plays.
However, the receivers didn’t repay him last season, with an 8.9 percent drop rate. It felt like his receivers sometimes couldn’t handle the velocity of the ball, which is something NFL receivers prefer. In particular, there were two would-be touchdowns against Pitt on back-to-back plays.
Howell and the Tarheels offense needed to take some time to get going in 2020, but when they flipped that switch, they and their quarterback especially were able to get as hot as anybody out there.
He can make one big throw after another down the field and quickly put points on the board. That was never more true when he was responsible for almost 600 yards and six touchdowns in a 59-53 shootout against Wake Forest when they were already down by 21 in the third quarter.
The former Tarheel quarterback is sudden inside the pocket to almost hop around the free space, and he at times reaches down to the ground with his off-arm to regain his balance. He reduces his front shoulder very well to avoid rushers being able to grab that area and slide up into free space.
His game has some creativeness to make something happen out of structure, adding shovel passes and little flicks of the move. Last season, the offensive line allowed pressure on nearly half of the team’s true pass sets.
However, he can make himself look smaller and sink his hips to bounce sideways, almost like a running back on a jump-cut at times. He has a pretty thick lower half to shake off defenders.
With his top two receivers and running backs leaving before the 2021 season, a regression was expected in Howell’s passing production. However, he found a different avenue to success. He surprised everybody with his production as a runner. He finished second among FBS quarterbacks on 10+ yard rushes (45), thanks to his squatty build and competitiveness to gain yards through contact and somewhat of a slippery quality. He broke 65 tackles and showed enough short-area burst to get around the corner if the option-man on zone reads wasn’t leveraged to the outside.
Sam Howell's weaknesses
Howell has that way over-the-top throwing motion and can be inconsistent with his delivery because his shoulders are nearly parallel to the line of scrimmage as he drops back. It takes extra time to point front-shoulder, and only then does it start rotating through. That limits his ability to get ready to release the ball when he sees a receiver break open before hitting the top of his drop.
When he does have to speed up his process, you see the ball sail on him at times because his elbow gets so high, and he can’t follow through accordingly.
Structurally, the North Carolina offense last season was almost all RPOs and go-balls, leading the nation in both.
Howell has real issues reading stuff between the hashes, which his lack of height certainly is a factor in, so he is not gaining extra depth when needed, as he nearly has his linemen step on his feet at times.
He inexplicably turns down some completions over the middle, particularly off play-action. His PFF grade drops dramatically when under pressure (90.8 to 47.3). It was concerning to see when he’d take a safety several times because he bounced back there at the goal-line and somehow just came up short of it, as he was wrapped for sacks in some games.
Howell’s ball placement on the move is sub-par. He crosses his feet and almost hops into some of his throws when rolling out towards the sideline. One can routinely see him run into the backs of blockers when he tries to dart upfield.
He doesn’t have the explosiveness to slice through creases as he’s trying to get past the line of scrimmage. He also doesn’t have the greatest feel for setting up blockers as a runner, and he will not nearly make that kind of impact on the ground in the pros as a reasonably average athlete.
Howell had a concerning 2021 season-opener against Virginia Tech when they put just ten points on the board. He threw away the game late when they were down by seven and tossed a horrible pick while getting dragged down.
Conclusion on Sam Howell
Regarding what Howell presents as a prospect, you can argue it’s very similar to Ole Miss’ Matt Corral, coming from an RPO and one-read offense, primarily, with the arm talent to test defenses vertically and the toughness to take hits despite being in the 6’1” range.
However, Corral has a much more compact release and is more efficient with his movement inside the pocket. There’s a drastic difference in the ability to quickly create a platform for themselves (set up for success).
Howell can put up some big numbers if your offense is built on routes along the sideline and a few slants sprinkled in. Still, the middle of the field is currently not accessible to him, and unlike Corral, the traits of being able to find and get to secondary solutions are unseen.
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