The EB Effect

I don't think it was a lack of confidence in Sam. My read on that was that Ron is completely clueless on how to manage the QB position. Or he may simply have forgotten that his team had been eliminated from the playoffs the week before. Certainly, most of us must have seen that Ron was reality challenged to have started "Wince" Wentz against Cleveland. Ron is an admirable man but I don't believe that he has the awareness and judgement as a HC to lead this team to a championship.


Could not agree more with this. Great guy from all accounts, but not a great HC.

Elite size. Definitely not. Thats fine with me.

His arm is a cannon though. At the combine he led all passers with a 59 mph throw. Also extremely accurate with the deep ball.His velocity is above average no doubt. I'm alluding to overall arm strength including power and deep ball length more than anything. He's got a good arm no doubt, just don't think it's elite (Mahomes, Allen, etc.)

His velocity is above average no doubt. I'm alluding to overall arm strength including power and deep ball length more than anything. He's got a good arm no doubt, just don't think it's elite (Mahomes, Allen, etc.)

It's more than sufficient. That works if you throw it to the right place.

I don't think it was a lack of confidence in Sam. My read on that was that Ron is completely clueless on how to manage the QB position. Or he may simply have forgotten that his team had been eliminated from the playoffs the week before. Certainly, most of us must have seen that Ron was reality challenged to have started "Wince" Wentz against Cleveland. Ron is an admirable man but I don't believe that he has the awareness and judgement as a HC to lead this team to a championship.

My understanding that the Wentz acquisition was influenced by Snyder. And it would not surprise me if the Cleveland decision was influenced by Snyder.

If you listen to Keim, the coaching staff always thought Sam had a promising future, but felt he needed to develop. Also, if Ron didn't believe in Sam, he would not have bet his job security this upcoming season and name him starting QB.

While he definitely has his faults, I'm willing to give Ron a clean slate and see how he does without Snyder meddling with the team. If Snyder was actively bleeding this team for money, you can bet he was back to his old ways of meddling with football decisions.

Elite size. Definitely not. Thats fine with me.

His arm is a cannon though. At the combine he led all passers with a 59 mph throw. Also extremely accurate with the deep ball.

I just don't get how so many "experts" underestimated Sam's arm strength. As you mentioned, he actually proved that he had the strongest arm of all the QB's at the combine. It's on the official record, for goodness sakes! Many NFL executives failed to see what Sam can become and they will regret it.

Meanwhile, the Press seems to think NFL execs are infallible so there must be something wrong with him because he was drafted in the 5th Round. "Well", someone might have said, "he must have a weak arm." So they all went with the weak arm story. Thus, the Colt McCoy comparison.

Again, as you suggested, the only thing Sam lacks is two or three inches in height. If he were 6"4" tall he might have been a 1st Round pick. That's how stupid people can be when they start to believe a false narrative rather than believing what they see with their own eyes. Our team executives weren't any smarter than the others but we got lucky. Luck is good!

I don't think it was a lack of confidence in Sam. My read on that was that Ron is completely clueless on how to manage the QB position. Or he may simply have forgotten that his team had been eliminated from the playoffs the week before. Certainly, most of us must have seen that Ron was reality challenged to have started "Wince" Wentz against Cleveland. Ron is an admirable man but I don't believe that he has the awareness and judgement as a HC to lead this team to a championship.

I agree with your assessment on Ron. But if they were loving what they were seeing in practice last year, wouldn't have they given Howell a shot earlier given the level of QB play we had ?
Anyway, they trust him know and that's what matters, I was just trying to say what we've seen in pre-season from Sam is a nice surprise to some extent because of this.

I just don't get how so many "experts" underestimated Sam's arm strength. As you mentioned, he actually proved that he had the strongest arm of all the QB's at the combine. It's on the official record, for goodness sakes! Many NFL executives failed to see what Sam can become and they will regret it.

Meanwhile, the Press seems to think NFL execs are infallible so there must be something wrong with him because he was drafted in the 5th Round. "Well", someone might have said, "he must have a weak arm." So they all went with the weak arm story. Thus, the Colt McCoy comparison.

Again, as you suggested, the only thing Sam lacks is two or three inches in height. If he were 6"4" tall he might have been a 1st Round pick. That's how stupid people can be when they start to believe a false narrative rather than believing what they see with their own eyes. Our team executives weren't any smarter than the others but we got lucky. Luck is good!

Sam was a projected First round pick at UNC .. he played his final year and lost a lot of talent and slipped .. that was our lucky break ! How many QB’s with a cannon or a great runner or whatever end up a bust and then think about some of the greatest were overlooked … We are fortunate Sam slipped to us !!

The Sam Howell college stats thing is weird. It's like people are pretending his junior stats were shitty. He still had really good numbers, with a clearly inferior offense.

How many UNC guys from his junior year are in the NFL?

And, if he looked like Maye, and had the same exact stats the draft experts would have slobbed all over his knob.

We're not geniuses for picking him in the 5th round. We got lucky a lot of other teams were stupid. But I'm glad we were the team to end his fall.

https://media0.giphy.com/media/VRa3YCyi3JSWk/giphy.gif


lol... you and SF are definitely running the Howell Fan Club. I'll take a wait and see approach. But so far hard not to like what we've seen.

I don't think it was a lack of confidence in Sam. My read on that was that Ron is completely clueless on how to manage the QB position. Or he may simply have forgotten that his team had been eliminated from the playoffs the week before. Certainly, most of us must have seen that Ron was reality challenged to have started "Wince" Wentz against Cleveland. Ron is an admirable man but I don't believe that he has the awareness and judgement as a HC to lead this team to a championship.

Before he went out and got Wentz he was asking Joe Gibbs what kind of QB they scouted back in the 80's.. I knew right there that he didn't know wtf he was doing when it came to QB's. Joe liked big strong pure pocket guys but the league has totally changed. Those kind of guys will be dead in a few years. Everyone is drafting guys that can run. Having one of the best athletes at the QB position is where the league is going- so when he got Wentz I just knew that was going to fail. Once Wentz lost his mobility he was done as a QB. Wentz wasn't good enough to just sit back and beat you throwing.