NFC Notes: Commanders, Cowboys, Eagles

Commanders

The Commanders have had opportunities to add more established or more highly-touted quarterbacks this offseason. Instead, they’ve stuck to their word and are going into the 2023 season ready to give 2022 fifth-round QB Sam Howell a shot as the starter. As recently as the end of last season, Howell was running the scout team, but even then HC Ron Rivera says they were seeing things that were giving them confidence in Howell. 

“Towards the end of the season last season we started seeing some real positive signs that really showed he is very confident and comfortable,” Rivera said via ESPN’s John Keim. “A couple of times some things happened in practice and you would see him fix it himself. That was always something that you look for. He was doing things like that probably mid to end of the season so we felt really comfortable about it.”

“They know what’s coming on defense yet he still made the throws. That’s what was impressive,” Rivera added.

Howell has just one start to his name so far in last season’s regular-season finale against the Cowboys, and he almost didn’t have that. Rivera was going to start veteran QB Taylor Heinicke and bring in Howell during the game. until Heinicke and other players convinced him Howell was ready for the start. Now Rivera cites that belief from teammates as another reason they’re confident in Howell. 

“The first thing you’d hear from the defensive guys was, ‘I was trying to make that play, I just couldn’t get to the ball,’” Rivera said. “The old saying is that players know players. As you listen to them talk about it, [receivers would say], ‘His ball was so catchable; he threw that to the only spot [open].”

Cowboys

There haven’t been many individuals with more of an impact on the Cowboys recently than DC Dan Quinn. The defense leaped from 28th in scoring defense to inside the top ten in each of the past two seasons, and Quinn has turned down serious head coaching interest for two offseasons in a row to stay in Dallas. That means once again, expectations are sky-high on that side of the ball for the Cowboys entering 2023. 

“Just the culture and the vibe that he brings in the room every single day is unmatched,” Cowboys LB Leighton Vander Esch said via the Athletic’s Jon Machota. “I’ve said it a hundred times, his energy that he carries with him is contagious. It makes you want to be around him. He literally could have went and got a head coaching job pretty much anywhere that he wanted. And the fact that he stayed here with us, it showed us how much he cared about us and this crew, and really what we can do. We have another opportunity to do that this year and get even better and go for that trophy. That’s our goal and there ain’t going to be nothing short of it.”

Giants

Giants WR Bryce Ford-Wheaton explained why he signed with the team over the Eagles after going undrafted this year out of West Virginia.

“It was like recruiting,” Ford-Wheaton said, via The Athletic. “It was like you had to sign right then. You get 30 seconds to choose where you were going. I talked to (Daboll) for a long time. My phone was blowing up while I was on the phone with him. I was sending everybody else to voicemail because in my head I was already like, ‘This is where I want to go.’”

“I already felt good about the Giants, because I had already met them,” Ford-Wheaton added. “I had already learned a couple of installs with them and kind of got tested. The determining factor was I had David Sills, one of my old teammates, up there. He’s done what I’m trying to do right now.”

“He’s just a real honest, up-front dude. He’s just real blunt,” Ford-Wheaton said of Daboll. “He’s not going to sit here and lie in your face. I was asking him what he saw my role being, and he just straight up said my role is going to be whatever I make it. I knew that he doesn’t care about where you get drafted or when. He cares more about what you’re about to do and how you’re going to produce. The best man is going to play. The proof is in the pudding.”