It’s Just the Same ‘Ole, Same ‘Ole for the Redskins…right?

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August 13, 2019

by Steve Thomas

You shouldn’t have been shocked at the Redskins suffering a beat down at the hands of the formerly pathetic Cleveland Browns last Thursday evening.  If you were shocked, then you haven’t been paying attention over the past five years.  It’s true that the Redskins looked mostly terrible in their opening preseason game of the 2019 season, but the sad fact is that Jay Gruden’s Redskins teams have never been ready to go and played well in the beginning of the season.  You’d have been foolish to expect anything but a 10 – 30 tail whuppin’.

The larger question, though, is what the Browns game told us about rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins.  After all, he’s the future – on a long-term basis, the team’s fate will be determined by whether he can live up to his potential as a quarterback.  All of the other stuff, from the running game, questionable safety play, and an all of a sudden mediocre offensive line will undoubtedly come around, at least to some extent, provided that Haskins is a success.

However, Haskins didn’t have a good night, statistically. He was just 8 for 14, with 117 yards, 2 interceptions, and a microscopically low 44.2 quarterback rating, whereas the other highly drafted rookie quarterbacks around the NFL for the most part did well in their debuts. So this is yet another Redskins draft gaff, right?  The same ‘ole Redskins, drafting the guy who isn’t going to work out, right? It’s a pretty negative viewpoint to have, but honestly, after all this fanbase had been through, I wouldn’t fault you for feeling that way.

What I would propose to you, though, is that what we saw Thursday night is a definite glimpse of Haskins’ innate talent with the football.  The ball jumps off his hand in a way that no quarterback has been able to do around these parts for a very long time, maybe even better than Robert Griffin, who also has a cannon for an arm.  That kind of God-given arm talent is rare, and Washington is lucky to have him in that regard.  The guy can really sling it, and he showed that against Cleveland.  Pass number one – designed play action roll out to the right, 20 yard pass downfield into a tight window.  A fine NFL play.  He had multiple on-target throws into tight windows that were quality efforts and better throws than guys like Colt McCoy and Case Keenum can hope to do on a regular basis.

Haskins also isn’t the immobile statue that some analysts made him out to be.  He’s actually more mobile than people give him credit for.  He’s never going to be able to imitate Michael Vick, Kyler Murray, or the aforesaid Griffin, but he does have a good feel for the pocket and pressure, and can scramble around for some yardage when he has to.  Haskins demonstrated that on Thursday night as well.

Where he fell short was in correctable areas, not fundamental flaws.  To me, the game looked to still be a bit too fast for him in terms of his decision-making, but that will come in time.  As far as his two interceptions go, former NFL quarterback turned NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky broke down Haskins’ pick 6 and showed why the formation and a failed pick by the wide receiver were the principal causes of the interception, not Haskins.  Watch Dan’s explanation:

The most interesting part of Orlovsky’s breakdown was his challenge to the Redskins staff to “coach with more detail”.  I don’t completely agree with Orlovsky, because in my view Haskins still threw a bad ball, but the point is that it wasn’t as awful of a play by Haskins as it first seemed.  As to the second interception, the All-22 film isn’t available for preseason games, so I can’t see exactly what happened, but it’s safe to say that the play was just a terrible read and an even worse throw.  These type of things were bound to happen, and I just can’t get too wrapped around the flagpole over them at this point. Again, he’ll get better.

In addition, although I certainly don’t profess to be an offensive line expert, it appeared to me as though some of the protection problems the offensive line had in this game might have also been due to Haskins missing protection calls.  Like I said, this is definitely not my area, but I think it’s worth watching in the coming weeks, because this skill is a major, critical part of becoming a franchise-level NFL quarterback.

That’s just a quick summary of what Haskins brought to the table in his first NFL action.  Here’s the point: he clearly has talent, and things weren’t as bad as his 44.2 rating would suggest, but he also has a long way to go before he’s ready to take over. Remember, this is a player who’s coming from a college experience in which he played mostly out of the shotgun and had to learn play calls that were 4-5 words at most.  That’s a world apart from Jay Gruden’s complicated offense and lengthy play calls.  Haskins showed me enough last week to validate my initial thought that he really is as talented as we thought. No, he’s not the best option to be the starter for this team right now, but that’s not a reason to panic or even get too upset.  Problems were bound to arise in Haskins’ development.  There’s plenty of time for him to live up to his draft status and become the quarterback for whom the Redskins have been searching for more than a generation – why rush things?  There’s no need to throw him to the wolves and start on day 1.  Let the man sit on the bench and learn for awhile.  It’ll be okay, I promise.