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It was the night of Jan. 8, and Commanders coach Ron Rivera was making the hourlong commute from FedEx Field in the Maryland suburbs back to his Virginia home. Sitting shotgun was his wife, Stephanie, and it didn’t take Rivera long to bend her ear with the 26–6 win over the Cowboys to close out an up-and-down 2022 season.
The topic: quarterbacks. And, really, not quarterbacks plural, but one in particular.
The coach made the decision to turn to Sam Howell a week earlier, starting him instead of going with his initial instinct (to start Taylor Heinicke, then go to Howell after a series or two). And by the time Rivera climbed into his car, he not only had affirmation that the final call was the right one—Howell’s numbers weren’t spectacular, but he also was comfortable and in command during the win—but Rivera also knew he had a rookie who had played well enough to invite new questions.
“You can ask Stephanie, all we f—ing talked about was the quarterback, what the quarterback did, who he was,” Rivera said, sitting on his office couch on another steamy August day. “I kept saying, . When you only have so much time to show it, it’s hard, I kept thinking, but after that game, everything told me this kid, give him the opportunity and see what he does with it.”
By the time the coach and his wife pulled into the driveway, they’d reviewed everything. Rivera told Stephanie he was particularly impressed with Howell correcting the one big mistake he made, a pick on a second-and-goal from the Dallas 5-yard line early in the second quarter. Howell explained to the coaches that he got greedy and tried to feather the ball over the coverage to Cam Sims, rather than lead him to the corner of the end zone.
the quarterback told Rivera.
Rivera thought to himself,
He explained to Stephanie that he wanted to get Howell in the right mindset with the offseason coming, because the coach thought Howell had a real chance. Knowing that exit meetings started the next morning, she asked her husband what he planned to tell the quarterback.
Rivera thought for a minute. He’d tell Howell the opportunity was there for him to win the starting job, and that the Commanders would sign a veteran backup who would come in and compete with him for it—but that Howell would have every chance to assert himself as the No. 1. It was all the QB needed to hear.
“I knew I had to come in and still earn every single day,” Howell said, a few minutes earlier, and a short walk from Rivera’s office. “I knew people like me, fifth-round picks don’t get that opportunity very often that early in their career.”
Seven months later, Rivera and so many others here are betting their futures on his ability to take full advantage of it.
