Xavien Howard proves that he has become the Miami Dolphins X-factor

When the Miami Dolphins wrapped up their final seconds against the Oakland Raiders Xavien Howard watched the clock tick off to victory.

While most fans are watching games, their listening for players names getting mentioned by the commentators and they judge who played a great game by how many times they heard his name. A lot of times that does translate, usually on offense, sometimes on defense, but that’s not always an accurate way to determine a solid effort.

Sometimes you want silence. Sometimes you want to hear almost nothing to determine if a player is being effective. Sunday afternoon I heard Miami’s Xavien Howard’s name twice. Once when he made a tackle on Oakland star receiver Amari Cooper after one of his only two catch performance day. The second was an electric interception late in the fourth quarter in the end zone, nullifying a long time consuming drive by the Oakland Raiders, that would have given them the lead late in the fourth quarter. Instead it was a game changing turnover which was shortly followed by one hell of a TD run by teammate Albert Wilson to secure a hard-fought victory at Hard Rock Stadium.

Xavien Howard the 2016 second round draft pick, has quietly turned into an absolute solid number one shutdown corner, with a knack to show up big in clutch situations. In a short time he has improved each game and solidified himself as one of the best cornerbacks in the league.  They say, big time players make big time plays at big times and Sunday afternoon he was tasked to blanket and remove the Raiders best receiver during the game, and he delivered.

Amari Cooper finished the game with two catches for just seventeen yards and was basically erased from the entire game. Xavien Howard shut him down and in doing so put the rest of the NFL on notice.

So you might not have heard his name very often Sunday from the commentary crew, but you now know who the “X-Factor” is and why his is silent game is so impressive!