is it possible that some of the players have decided to go passive-agressive on Howell?

As someone with deep-rooted passive-agressive tendencies, I can totally see this. When I feel that people who put themselves out as having "authority" over me are pushing their agenda in an inappropriate way, my natural tendency is to react passive-agressively in order to punish them. Along those lines, I'll somewhat pretend to go through the motions to do what they want me to do, but I'm really bending over backwards to defy them (and taking great pleasure in doing so). And if my passive-agressiveness results in the authority figure becoming more aggressive and domineering, I want to dig in and defy them all the more. I want them to reap the whirlwind.

Not saying that this is a mature or healthy way to deal with people but, for many people, it's a very natural response to what they deem to be authority run amok (I'm still struggling with this in my 40's and these football players are 18-24 year old kids).

I don't think this is happening with all of the players on the defense. But I wonder if it's happening with some of them.