How would a former NFL personnel executive move the Commanders forward at quarterback? In addition, what does it mean for Sam Howell in particular?
Al Galdi, on his podcast Wednesday, discussed this and more with Joe Banner, former Eagles team president (1995-2012) and Browns Chief Executive Officer (2012-13). Here are a few excerpts from Banner.
The Commanders are making it known they are positioning Sam Howell for their QB1 in the 2023 season. Should they draft a quarterback? Should they sign a free-agent quarterback?
“I think the Commanders are a quarterback away from being a good team. I don’t know that they are a quarterback away from being a great team. There’s more that needs to be done. Some of it may be done by replacing the offensive coordinator. Hopefully, they will use opportunities in the offseason to upgrade some of the talent.”
“You have to draft well, and they have to keep those players. There is more opportunity than there has even been to build a team more through free agency. For years you could not win a championship doing that.”
“I always preferred to draft and develop my own players at the most important positions. But you have to be very careful not to be fooling yourself if you think you have solutions, but you don’t.”
Banner says he watched only a bit of Howell prior to the draft and therefore does not have a solid opinion regarding Howell. He added that other people have studied more and have stronger convictions. But, of course, that alone does not indicate whether they are accurate or not.
“It would worry me to think we were going to put most of our eggs in the basket of a fifth-round draft choice. It presumes the rest of the league missed, which we know does occasionally happen, but not that often. I like to bet on the odds; I don’t like to swim upstream.”
“The odds are the fifth-round draft choice that everyone else passed on is not suddenly the answer after 20 years of searching for a quarterback. So, I would be concerned if that was the only thing we were going to do.”
“Whatever way, they should not prejudge this and be afraid of past mistakes or successes they have had. They should just be evaluating every quarterback that could possibly be a member of this team…. It’s not because one is a veteran and one is a young guy. Not because one guy has a skill, another guy does not.”
“You want a clean slate, no bias brought to the table, finding out who can take this team to a level we haven’t seen in a long time. Anything else runs the risk of creating bias, which increases the odds of making a mistake.”
Howell only took snaps in one game this season. Here is a video claiming to contain each run and pass by Howell in the Commanders’ 26-6 win over the Cowboys.
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