The Washington Commanders’ promising start to the new season just took a massive blow on Sunday. This is after the Commanders suffered an embarrassing 37-3 loss at the hands of the Buffalo Bills in Week 3. Washington’s 100% record was just erased in brutal fashion by Josh Allen and Co.
Ron Rivera Reacts to Sam Howell’s Brutal Performance
You could say that it was an all-around disappointing performance for the entire squad. However, quarterback Sam Howell’s poor outing was unsurprisingly highlighted in the blowout loss. The second-year QB logged 19-of-29 completed passes against Buffalo for 170 yards. He did not score any touchdowns, and most significantly, he threw no less than four interceptions in the loss.
After the game, head coach Ron Rivera got brutally honest in his assessment of Howell’s performance:
“Missed opportunities. That’s the bottom line,” Rivera said, via the team website. “First of all, you can’t turn the ball over, which we did. And if you lose the turnover battle like that, you’re going to get beat. That’s the truth of the matter.”
Be that as it may, Rivera did not throw his quarterback under the bus. The veteran shot-caller still saw a bit of silver lining in Howell’s howler, which is probably something Washington will want to build on in the coming weeks:
“I thought he handled some of the moments pretty well and I thought there was other ones that he probably could have done something different,” Rivera said. “We’re going to get an opportunity to evaluate everything, evaluate what we’re doing, make sure it’s the right thing first and foremost. Then secondly, we’ll evaluate how we thought the players did.”
Washington Commanders QB Sam Howell Vocal on Loss
Sam Howell himself admits that he had a forgettable day against the Bills. The 23-year-old was quick to take the blame for the loss:
“Yeah, just got to be better,” he said. “You know, there’s a lot of things, obviously it starts with me and I got to take better care of the football. Do a better job just leading my offense. Obviously a lot of things didn’t go right today and it starts with me. But you know, the good thing is the sun will come up tomorrow, another opportunity to get better and go to work. We have a lot of stuff we can get better at. We’re excited to go back and get better. But we have to play better and that starts with me.”
One thing you cannot fault this young man for is his optimism. It is clear that Howell is ready to move on from this disaster as he looks to learn from his mistakes. I guess what you can take away from his performance on Sunday is that there are more than a few things he can definitely learn from.
“Yeah, I mean, I think the reality of it is you go back, you watch the film and you don’t just flush it,” he said. “You watch the film, and you try to learn from it. Because that’s the only way that you’re gonna get better. You can’t just forget about it because it happened. So, we’ll go back and be hard on ourselves. I’ll be hard on myself, and I hold myself to a very high standard and I didn’t play to that standard today. I’ll go back and watch the film and look at ways that I can play better.”
Howell’s first shot at redeeming himself comes on Sunday when the Commanders return to action against the Philadelphia Eagles. That won’t be an easy matchup by any means, but you can be sure that Week 4 cannot come soon enough for Sam Howell.
For More Of My Content
Follow me on Twitter at @PaoloSongcoNBA. You may also reach out to me personally at pao.songco@gmail.com.