North Carolina Football: Sam Howell’s NFL draft slide is finally over
A year ago, Sam Howell was talked about as a potential first-round NFL draft pick, but the North Carolina football star fell to round five.
Just last offseason, it felt like Sam Howell was going to be one of the top 2-3 quarterbacks chosen in the 2022 NFL Draft.
The North Carolina football star quarterback was coming off back-to-back monster seasons, throwing for over 6,000 yards and 68 touchdowns to start his career. And then he took a slight step back in 2021, passing for a career-low 3,056 yards and 24 touchdowns with nine interceptions. He also completed 63 percent of his passes which was down from 2020.
It was shocking still to see four rounds pass this week without hearing Howell’s name called. It’s not like he threw more interceptions than touchdowns this past season, but teams were still scared away by the slight regression.
The Washington Commanders decided to take a chance on him with the No. 144 overall pick in the fifth round and it might end up being the biggest quarterback steal for the organization since Kirk Cousins. While he may need a year or two, I could see Howell taking over eventually at quarterback, even with Carson Wentz now in town.
5th round for Sam Howell made too much sense to pass up. If Carson Wentz is mad about a 5th round QB, then Carson Wentz isnt the answer anyway
— JP Finlay (@JPFinlayNBCS) April 30, 2022
Howell had a heck of a career with North Carolina, passing for over 10,000 yards and 92 touchdowns in three years and yet some scouts viewed him as damaged goods.
There’s a reason Howell was once considered a legit Heisman candidate and potential first-round NFL draft pick and the Commanders could get that out of him.
The slide is finally over and you can bet Howell is ready to prove people wrong.
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