Commanders News: Sam Howell, Jonathan Allen, Jeremy Reaves and power rankings

Commanders puttng too much on Sam Howell?

It's hard to look at Sam Howell's overall performance levels over the first five weeks and not be impressed. The quarterback is growing in confidence with every passing week and even though results aren't where they need to be right now, the Washington Commanders might have found their franchise presence under center at long last.

Howell is doing what's required in the face of extreme pressure. He's the league's most sacked quarterback and thanks to some slow defensive starts, the former fifth-round selection is having to do a lot in pursuit of keeping his team in games.

When discussing this situation, Ron Rivera admitted via USA Today Sports that the Commanders are putting a lot on Howell's shoulders given the way things are unfolding. Although it's enhancing his personal development, the head coach wants things to become more balanced moving forward.

"It’s interesting, and I had a conversation with EB [offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy], and that was one of the things that we talked about; we didn’t want to have to do, but we’ve had to do, unfortunately, that has put so much on Sam [Howell] early. That’s expediting his development, that’s for sure, but we don’t want that. We want to be balanced; we want to be able to run, use play action, and drop back passing. We want to be able to use those phases of offense as opposed to getting stuck and saying, ‘Okay, we gotta try and do this and try and do this to give yourself a chance to win."

- Ron Rivera via USA Today Sports

Establishing the run, providing better protection, and improving from a defensive standpoint is the only way pressure will diminish on Howell. Something that would benefit the entire operation.