Washington waives Dwayne Haskins
December 28, 2020
by Steve Thomas
Washington announced this morning that the team has waived quarterback Dwayne Haskins. Head coach Ron Rivera stated, “I told him I believe it benefits both parties that we go our separate ways. We want to thank Dwayne for his contributions these last two season and wish him well moving forward.” Haskins’ release comes on the heels of his worst week of his career, which was marred by a COVID-19 protocol preach and a disastrous performance yesterday against the Carolina Panthers in which he went 14 for 28 for 154 yards, no touchdowns, 2 interceptions, and 1 fumble.
Today’s dissolution of the Washington – Haskins marriage was a long time coming, with Rivera having benched Haskins after game 4 and being forced to play him again this week only due to a downgrade on Friday of Alex Smith‘s calf injury. The fact that Taylor Heinicke was much more effective in the fourth quarter of yesterday’s game probably sealed Haskins’ fate, and Haskins’ temporary refusal to speak to the media (which he subsequently corrected) surely didn’t help.
Haskins ends his Washington career with 16 games played, including 13 starts, and 267 completions in 444 attempts for a 60.1% completion percentage, 12 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, and a career quarterback rating of 74.4. The high water mark of his tenure with the team came in weeks 14 and 15 in 2019, in which Haskins posted quarterback ratings of 121.3 and 143.2, respectively, with his performance going downhill ever since.
Washington will take a salary cap hit as a result of this move, assuming the team does not try to claim that Haskins breached his contract. Haskins had a $3.276M cap number this season, with $11.8M in dead money. However, the dead money will be split up over this season and next, with $7.5M coming now and a little over $4M in 2021. Haskins’ cap hit in 2021 was $3.9M. Therefore, the team will lose a net of approximately $4.3M in cap space this season and $300K in 2021 as a result of not having Haskins on the roster. Washington is effectively paying to make this player go away. By The Hog Sty’s calculations, they now have approximately $17.6M in current cap space.