The future of the quarterback room
July 14, 2021
by Steve Thomas
As much serious, long-term change that the leadership in Ashburn has made, both on and off the field, one area which is clearly not settled is the quarterback room. Right now, Washington has Ryan Fitzpatrick, Taylor Heinicke, Kyle Allen, and Steven Montez signed to the roster. All but Heinicke will be free agents after this season, and Heinicke is only signed through 2022. The experiences of the 1980s Redskins under Joe Gibbs aside, history tells us that almost every other NFL team that has been successful on a long-term basis in the past several decades has at least had a solid, franchise quarterback. A few teams have won a Super Bowl with a less than great quarterback, such as the 1985 Chicago Bears, the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, and 2012 Ravens, but for the most part, the past 25 Super Bowls have been dominated by great quarterbacks. Washington doesn’t have that. Even in the case of those Bears and Ravens teams, their success wasn’t sustainable. That’s not to say that Washington can’t be a good team without a hall of fame quarterback, because they can, but if this franchise wants to become an annual contender, the simple fact is that they need to find a high-quality young quarterback who can grow with the franchise.
I think most Redskins Washington fans are fairly hopeful about what Ryan Fitzpatrick can bring to the franchise. Certainly, his stats with the Dolphins last year were better the Washington’s conglomeration of passers. Fitzpatrick played 9 games, with 7 starts, and completed 183 passes in 267 attempts, for 2,091 yards, 68.5% completion percentage, 7.8 yards per attempt, 13 touchdowns, 8 interceptions, and a 95.6 quarterback rating. Those numbers are well above his career averages, which hopefully bodes well for the 2021 season. Fitzpatrick’s obvious problem is his age. At 38, and turning 39 in November, this season may be it for him. The otherworldly run of Tom Brady aside, Fitzpatrick simply can’t be counted on past the 2021 season. The idea of him playing for Washington at a high level into his 40s, thereby eliminating the team’s quarterback problem, is unrealistic, and that’s to say nothing of his career-long inconsistency problem. Frankly, I think it will be a gift if he gets through all 17 games this season both healthy and at a reasonably high level of performance. I like the guy and am glad he’s in DC, but people should dissuade themselves of the notion that Fitzmagic is the answer.
Taylor Heinicke and Kyle Allen fall into the same general category – they’re projects. We all liked what we saw from Heinicke in Washington’s playoff loss to Tampa Bay last season, but no sane person should be ready to declare him the next great Washington quarterback. Both Allen and Heinicke are undrafted free agent projects who’ve had serious, major injury problems. The odds are against either one of these players being good enough to grab hold of the team’s starting job on a permanent basis, their injury history notwithstanding. The point is, the chances of either Heinicke or Allen being the answer are long.
Steven Montez is an even longer shot. I liked his college film, and he may eventually get a chance to play here, but he’s obviously not viewed as a franchise quarterback.
Here’s the problem: Rivera is entering his second year and doesn’t yet have an obvious future starter on the roster. If things go well and Washington has a decent year, that’d be wonderful, but is Fitzpatrick going to come back again? If he does, that puts Rivera into his third year in Washington with a 40 year old quarterback, which would in turn put Rivera in the position of having to draft his future starter in his fourth year. That might just be too far into his term to continue show progress and become a contender as his contract is coming up for renewal. As painful as it would be to have bad season in 2021, from a quarterback perspective, a high draft choice in 2022 would solve a pretty big problem.
The truth is, absent a bad 2021, Rivera is a bit pinched in this situation, and there’s no telling how Daniel Snyder will react if the team is still stuck in mediocrity heading into the back end of Rivera’s contract. NFL head coaches almost never make it to the final, lame duck year of their contracts. Rivera signed a five year deal, so odds are that Snyder will make a decision about Rivera by the end of the 2023 season. Everything seems great now, but three years from now is a long time in Snyderland. Therefore, Rivera may need to at least have his future starter on the roster by 2023, assuming neither Heinicke nor Allen ever kick the injury bug and rise to that level. Defense can only take you so far, for the most part, and Fitzmagic hauling the team up into the upper-middle for a couple of years while the offense starts to gel may actually be a net-negative in the long-term.
That’s the pessimist’s perspective. The eternal optimist will believe that in three years, Washington’s defense will be so unstoppable, and the offensive players who are here now will have progressed so much, that the team could essentially plug any league average quarterback in for a relatively modest salary and win. I hope that’s true, but history suggests that it’s pretty unlikely. Therefore, if Fitzpatrick plays fairly well and the team is at least average or better, there’s a pretty decent chance that Washington trades away a couple of future picks in order to grab a top-ranked quarterback in 2022 or 2023.