Howard returns to form, shares NFL lead with 3 interceptions
Xavien Howard is ... back?
Sure seems that way. Three interceptions in the past three weeks is as good as it gets, and with his knee injury and illness behind him, Howard sure seems like the player who led the league with seven interceptions in 2018.
“I feel great about just being back,” Howard said Monday, less than 24 hours after picking off 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. “With my play, I’m just focused on getting better each week, week in and week out, and really just focused on whatever I’m weak at my position — what I lacked at last year.”
He lacked, more than anything, health.
Howard has had issues with both knees during his first four NFL seasons, missing 15 games since the start of the 2018 season.
He was still rehabbing his latest surgery in August when a wholly different kind of setback emerged: a positive COVID-19 test. Howard spent 16 days on the league’s reserve list during training camp, raising doubts that he would be ready for the opener.
He was, but only was on the field for 42 percent of the team’s defensive plays in Week 1.
But in the four weeks since, he’s missed just 10 snaps — and nine of those came after Brian Flores pulled his starters in Sunday’s blowout win.
Howard still has shown some rust — he’s giving up 18.4 yards per catch, a result of getting beaten deep early in the season — but each week, that rust has been less pronounced.
So how healthy is he?
The Dolphins aren’t saying, but give Dolphins defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander credit for creatively avoiding the question. He likened Howard’s status to the video game Street Fighter, which provides a health bar for each character.
“You can see how much health your fighter has until he’s no longer usable,” Alexander said. “You’ve got to go to the next round. Unfortunately for X, I don’t see his health meter, but I do think he is improving day to day and he has the ability to go out there on Sundays and make plays for us.”
When asked to compare Howard to previous years, defensive coordinator Josh Boyer replied: “That’s probably a question for somebody else. What our focus is is getting the best out of each individual player. Like we’ve said time and time again, if you see guys out on the field, he’s good to go and help us.”
Help the Dolphins, Howard has. Quarterbacks have managed a passer rating of just 77.4 when throwing in his coverage area, and he’s allowed just one touchdown on 21 targets. Compare that to 2018 — Howard’s best season to date — when he surrendered five touchdowns on 63 targets.
Another ridiculous stat: Howard’s 15 interceptions since December 2017 are most in the NFL — and he’s missed nearly a full season because of injury during that time.
“To get it as elementary as I can put it, he does his job,” Alexander said. “He’s aligned in the right places. He does what’s necessary for the play call . ... He’s a guy who has good ball skills when the ball’s in the air.
“There’s a lot of corners — I can look at my playing career, there were so many layups I dropped that were right in my hands.
“A guy like him who has the ball skills to really defend in the zone defense and catch those balls or even man to man, defending the 9 route and catching the ball at the highest point, he does a really does a good job attacking the football.”
And now that Byron Jones is back healthy after a groin injury, the Dolphins seem to have one of the best cornerback combinations in the league — which is good, because they also have the most expensive. Jones and Howard are the league’s fifth and sixth highest-paid corners, respectively.
“It feels great having Byron back,” Howard said. “He helps out a lot on the defense. Just me and him on the corners outside, we’re just competing and really just trying to be the best out there right now.”