Sam Howell Reflects on Commanders Win vs. Cardinals - 'Could Have Been Better!'

The Washington Commanders escaped with a win over the Arizona Cardinals, with quarterback Sam Howell stating there's a lot to clean up offensively.

The Washington Commanders (1-0) edged past the Arizona Cardinals (0-1) 20-16 at FedEx Field, but the performance wasn't the best from Eric Bieniemy's unit.

In a game that was dominated by consistent mistakes by the Commanders' offense, it was Jack Del Rio's defense that kept things tight. Eventually, Washington snuck away with a win in what was a true up-and-down day.

Quarterback Sam Howell thanked the defense for keeping the score down as the offense worked through its stumbles.

“I think offensively, we could have played a lot better,” Howell said. “Credit to our defense kept making plays all day long and gave us a chance there at the end to put some points up to kind of give us the win."

The list of mistakes in the Week 1 encounter included six sacks, two fumbles, an interception, and eight penalties for 69 yards.

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It was Howell's second-ever regular-season start and it wasn't the smoothest performance, but it is just one game.

Now, it's time to go back to the drawing board and clean up the mistakes.

“I think offensively we were moving the ball well," Howell said. [It was] just turnovers, penalties, sacks, a lot of things I think I can do better, a lot to clean up on the offensive side of the ball. So we’re excited to go back in this week and watch the film and try and learn from it.”

Perhaps the most important thing is that Washington, despite all the mistakes, still managed to get the win. 

But come next week against the Denver Broncos at Mile High, if the same mistakes happen again, the result could be vastly different.