Jordan Howard’s new hands could be huge addition to offense

Jordan Howard has been able show off his new hand placement over the first two days of training camp. Can this continue?

Everybody came into training camp having the same question around Jordan Howard. Can he catch? This has been an issue the past few seasons and has had many questioning if he is too one dimensional for the versatile Matt Nagy offense.

The new Chicago Bears coaching staff made it clear that they were going to work on the issue with Howard rather than work around it. They focused on specific hand placement at OTAs. It showed up at training camp, where Howard showed off his new hands with some strong receptions.

Howard noted after practice that it was the changed in his hand placement that the coaching staff talked about during OTAs. This first practice experience shows that Howard has been putting in the work in the down time between practice sessions.

Matt Nagy was also giving his praise to Howard and his new hands early into camp. In his own words, Nagy called Howard a three down back for this team, which means that he has the full arsenal of skills.

As mentioned, Nagy is looking for versatility out of his offense. He wants to line Tarik Cohen and Jordan Howard up in the backfield together. The idea is that they can throw to both, and they can run the football with both.

Cohen is obviously a strong handed receiver, but to add Howard into the mix will be a schematic nightmare for defensive teams. He is going to pound you up the middle if you put too many defensive backs on the field. However, run stuffing linebackers could be exposed in coverage.

This is a huge dynamic that Howard could bring. We need to see it in a game or two before getting too excited, but the arrow is pointing up in a major way.