Commanders head coach Ron Rivera isn’t ready to hand the starting quarterback job to Sam Howell.
When asked by a reporter about Howell, Rivera said that Howell has had a good camp but still needs to show what he can do in preseason games, and then brought up Jacoby Brissett as an option, without being asked about him.
“I think to me it’s right now, this is all the growth and development opportunity. This is a chance to learn the base fundamentals of our offense. And he’s been doing it since OTA’s and minicamp,” Rivera said of Howell. “Now we’re in training camp, we’re in our eighth day now. So all these things are coming together. What you really need to look for is when we get on the field, when we do game plan, when we do prepare. I know it’s just preseason games, but those are going to be paramount to telling everybody where he is, what’s his growth. And at the same time as I’ve said a couple times, don’t sleep on Jacoby, he’s done a nice job as well. I mean, we got some really good quarterback play going on right now. We’ve got a real good quarterback room. We’re very happy with what we’ve got right now. And again, we just want to continue to see the growth.”
Howell was widely viewed as the starter entering the offseason, but Howell is a second-year player who only played in one game as a rookie. It wouldn’t be a shock if Brissett is more prepared to help the Commanders win in Week One, and if Rivera wants to impress the Commanders’ new ownership by winning right away, he may decide to go with Brissett.
