Haskins Cut - UKHTTW viewpoint

"The League Done Messed Up"

This was my first introduction to the mindset of the now ex Washington QB Dwayne Haskins. I watched the Draft 2019, listened to this reaction to being taken at #15 and it did not sit right.

Two QBs had been taken ahead of Haskins to trigger this response.

It was no surprise that the Cardinals used their number 1 pick on the electric dual threat of Kyler Murray, but perhaps more surprisingly, the New York Giants took the less flashy option in Duke’s Daniel Jones at six. Even so, to be taken in the first round should be a huge honour and more importantly, the springboard to success achieved through hard work and dedication to improvement.

For so many, to be drafted into the NFL leads to a real outpouring of joy for the opportunity that awaits. Haskins expression was a petulant shrug and smile when Jones went to the Giants. This was my first red flag moment.

On the back of a spectacular 50 TD season in just 14 starts for Ohio State, Dwayne decided to forego his last two years of College to enter the NFL Draft. Coaches and talent evaluators might had erred away from impressive stats and wanted a larger sample size of work.

However, the justifiably maligned, aloof, and wholly inadequate Washington owner Daniel Snyder had other ideas. Ignoring the reservations from the then Redskins coaching staff, Mr Snyder wanted a new shiny new saviour in D.C.

And, like a scene from the 2014 Kevin Costner movie Draft Day, the advice was to “make a splash”, against the will of those who actually know about football and pick a guy who had gone to High School in the Maryland area.

Interestingly, Washington traded their 2019 and 2020 second round picks to jump from the second round and make another first round pick at 26. Montez Sweat, a hugely athletic DE, had gone off some NFL draft boards after a reported heart condition.

With 15 career sacks already, Sweat has rewarded that WFT faith and forms a formidable DE partnership with Chase Young. I’ve little doubt that Washington would have picked Montez at 15 and kept those second rounders that would have been highly useful additions at TE/WR/OL.

The then Head Coach Jay Gruden was working in a Washington environment that, if not exactly the opposite end of the coach-centric approach, was not far off. The evaluation was that, despite the high pick for Dwayne, he was very much a work in progress and sat behind journeyman Case Keenum to start the 2019 season.

Washington was still reeling from the Alex Smith injury that derailed 2018 after an encouraging start. The 2019 season was a blowout at 3-13. Keenum and Haskins both struggled in the QB merry go round and Gruden was shown the door after opening with five defeats.

And then came the summer revolution. Bruce Allen fired. The Redskins name and logo consigned to history. The hire of Ron Rivera as a Head Coach of tremendous authority and respect.

The new regime provided a chance for Dwayne who was instilled as the Week 1 starter, beating out the Scott Turner system aware Kyle Allen. Like many others I felt Dwayne might have turned the corner, as helped by a dominant Washington Defense, the Eagles were defeated on that opening day and there was much talk of a galvanising HT rally from Haskins.

This show of leadership proved a mirage.

Haskins played poorly in the next three and was benched for Allen. In simple terms Kyle looked a better “eye test” QB than Haskins and when Allen went down with a season-ending dislocated ankle injury in Week 9 vs the Giants, Ron turned to Alex Smith.

Smith has not set the world alight and it is largely a miracle he is even out there. But he has protected the ball well, and on the back of the defensive strength of this team kept the burgundy and gold in the hunt for the NFC East title.

However, a leg injury to Smith saw him exit vs San Francisco and Haskins performed shakily with the WFT Defense leading the team to victory against the 49ers. A loss vs Seattle in Week 15 was slightly mitigated by some OK Haskins play in the last quarter as he threw for 295 yards with 1 TD and 2 INT.

The beginning of the end was the Seattle post-game incident.

Washington fans will know the cancer struggles that Head Coach Rivera has gone through this season and the team adherence to COVID-19 has been excellent. Enter Dwayne Haskins at a private party to celebrate his girlfriend’s birthday. The women present were not wearing much at all – but more importantly Haskins was not wearing a mask and in breach of the pandemic regulations.

This was the QB’s second COVID-19 breach of the season. If you cannot follow simple rules around a pandemic, then the complexities and hard work required to be an NFL QB are likely to elude you too.

In the aftermath of the truly terrible Haskins showing Sunday vs Carolina, it is tempting to cast a critical eye on Rivera in starting the Dwayne ahead of Taylor Heinicke. Ron had a choice to cut Haskins immediately after the COVID-19 breach.

But with a divisional title winning opportunity vs the Panthers, Rivera understandably went with the guy who, if nothing else, has been in the building all season. It backfired, but at least in my view, does not equate to a contradiction of Ron’s Team First approach in giving Haskins a chance of redemption on the field.

Washington will now go into the Sunday match-up vs Philadelphia with prayers up for Alex Smith and Terry McLaurin to return.

For Dwayne Haskins, there might be a 2021 practice squad spot offering from an NFL team who saw enough talent to have taken him in a later round of the draft. Right now, however, Haskins will be coming to terms with the fact that it was he who “messed up” and not the League.