Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Feeling fine
Xavien Howard settles in as Dolphin cornerback.
DAVIE — Confidence is oozing from Xavien Howard’s pores this week.
That’s the byproduct of an impressive performance against Brandon Marshall, the six-time Pro Bowl receiver the Dolphins’ rookie cornerback helped limit to one catch for 16 yards in a 34-13 victory Saturday over the New York Jets.
“That’s why he was drafted as a secondround player. He’s tall and long. He’s got great movement. He’s got a great demeanor about him,” defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said. “He’s kind of a relaxed, too laid back of a person; but that helps sometimes being a young corner. He just kind of plays. He was over Brandon Marshall for most of the night, and it didn’t affect him at all. He did his job.”
The end result was Howard’s best game of the season in his first game back from a 10-week hiatus.
Before suffering his second right knee injury of 2016, Howard had a rough stretch of games, which included back-to-back struggles covering Cleveland’s Terrelle Pryor and Cincinnati’s A.J. Green.
The next week, Howard re-aggravated the medial collateral ligament that he had surgically repaired in July, and he was forced to undergo another operation. He rehabilitated for weeks before feeling confident enough to tell Miami’s coaches he was ready to play in a game.
Howard was expected to play a series or two against the Jets, but when veteran cor-
nerback Byron Maxwell sprained his right ankle in the first quarter, the rookie was pressed into duty and ended up playing 68 snaps.
He made two impressive knockdowns of passes on deep balls thrown to Marshall and noted this week that the game served as a confidence booster.
“Whoever is in front of me is going to have to get it,” said Howard, who could make his fifth start of the season Saturday, this time as Maxwell’s replacement, possibly defending Bills receiver Sammy Watkins.
Maxwell said he was eager to get in against the Jets. “I competed out there,” he said. “And that’s the [important] part of playing football, competing.”
The former Baylor standout, selected No. 38 overall, began this season as the starter on the boundary opposite Maxwell.
He played well early, reminding NFL insiders of a young Vontae Davis, before the medical setback. His performance against Marshall last week verifies that he has the makeup to be a top-shelf cornerback.
“Anytime that you do play a player of that caliber, you have to maintain a confidence you had in going into the game, and then you have to learn from those experiences,” head coach Adam Gase said. “It probably gave him a little bit of confidence boost that he is feeling as good as he looked.”
While Howard was sidelined, Tony Lippett filled in as the starter opposite Maxwell and progressively got better, contributing 53 tackles and four interceptions in his 11 starts.
Now Miami’s trio of firstand second-year cornerbacks, which includes nickel cornerback Bobby McCain, could start its first game together at Buffalo, as Maxwell’s ankle isn’t re- sponding favorably to treatment.
That means Saturday could provide the Dolphins a glimpse of their secondary’s future.
“I feel confident about those guys doing a good job within a game, making sure that we’re all on the same page,” Gase said. “If we do have any kind of errors, those are things we’re going to have to learn from, and we have to learn quickly. We have to minimize those as much as possible.”
Howard is eager to pick up where he left off before his knee issues, to finish his rookie season on the field, improving with each snap.
“I have to build confidence in my knee. I want to get back to normal, doing what I was doing before I had surgery,” he said. “I’ve been out for a long time. Having a rocky-road season as a rookie . ...
Howard said it’s been tough “watching guys compete, knowing I want to be out there.”