Chase Young and Dwayne Haskins had a day to forget, but Ron Rivera will remember how they handled it
By Les Carpenter,
CLEVELAND — Sunday had become a disaster for Washington Football Team quarterback Dwayne Haskins, perhaps the worst day of an NFL career that has seen more bad Sundays than good. Three of his passes had been intercepted by Cleveland defenders, and another Browns player had knocked the ball from his hand for a lost fumble. He walked slowly past his teammates, his shoulders slumped, his head shaking.
Behind him, on the field, the Browns were about to score again, turning a once-hopeful afternoon for Washington into a 34-20 defeat. Beside him stood a man in a gray T-shirt screaming in his ear.
“It doesn’t matter if we’re down 40; I’m going to be on the sideline rooting you on and saying, ‘Let’s go get seven,’ ” Haskins would later remember Chase Young yelling.
They are the most important players in whatever Washington is trying to build this fall, the second-year quarterback and the rookie pass rusher — first-round draft picks the past two seasons — and they were going to suffer together on a day that was supposed to be about them. They had been stars at Ohio State just two hours southwest of FirstEnergy Stadium, two men who knew nothing about losing until coming home to Washington.
Now that joyous return to Ohio had been ruined, with Young hobbling to the locker room in the second quarter with a groin injury and Haskins watching his passes fly into the arms of three different Browns. It was about as awful as either could have imagined. But those words shouted by Young kept rattling in Haskins’s head after they had left the field.
“For a guy like that, somebody that I admire [for] his work ethic and have love for and is like a brother to me, to have the utmost respect and trust for me to get the job done . . . ” Haskins said, not quite finishing his thought. He seemed touched.
[Washington falls to Cleveland, 34-20, after five turnovers; Chase Young injured]
Little about 2020 is going to be easy for this team. Sunday’s two collapses in a game Washington led in the first and third quarters should help make that clear. Its coach, Ron Rivera, keeps stressing that final scores are not as important as the process, that the winning eventually will come if this autumn’s rebuilding is done the right way. That’s why Rivera seemed certain about two things when he later spoke by Zoom from a makeshift interview room far beneath the stands: He’s sticking with Haskins, and Young is going to be a leader Rivera needs to make Washington good again.
The coach said he loved how Young came out of the locker room early in the second half, wearing black shorts and that gray T-shirt, and hobbled along the sidelines clapping his hands and shouting to teammates. No one would have been upset if Young had stayed in the locker room or lounged on the bench. The sight of the star pass rusher resting his injured leg wouldn’t have stirred anger.
But the fact Young kept pushing the other players even when he couldn’t play seemed to be an example of the “culture” Rivera constantly says he is trying to create. Even when things fall apart, everyone must keep looking forward. Twice already, this team has come back from being down 17-7 at halftime to take the lead in games. And while Washington was unable to hold that second-half advantage Sunday the way it did in the opener against Philadelphia, the battle showed a resilience that wasn’t there the past two seasons when a deficit meant the game was certain to be lost.
After the game Sunday, Rivera found Haskins and said, “Look, I’m behind you, and I’m going to stick with you.”
Rivera had to have expected afternoons like this. He has said he still thinks of Haskins as being in his rookie year after the quarterback played in only nine games last season. Back when Rivera coached the Carolina Panthers, he went through similarly dismal days with a young Cam Newton. He stuck with Newton even as the television talk shows called for a new quarterback.
“Is he going to learn by taking the show team snaps [as a backup in practice]?” Rivera said, his voice incredulous when the idea of benching Haskins was raised late Sunday afternoon. “The only way he’s going to learn, the only way we’re going to find out where Dwayne is and where he can be for us is to put him back on the football field and let him get exposed.”
For better or for worse, this is Young and Haskins’s team. Who knows how long Young will be out or how many more bad throws Haskins will make. What seemed to encourage Rivera was the way both men handled their bad moments, with Haskins still fighting to reverse Cleveland’s onslaught of 17 straight fourth-quarter points and Young telling Haskins he still believes.
Yes, Sunday must have been such a bitter disappointment for both. Before the game they seemed so happy, pointing to a few of the 6,000 fans who had been allowed in the stands. Young waved to his mother, his sister and two of his uncles sitting in Section 149. When a photographer asked for a photo, Young made an “O” with his arms and Haskins raised his hands over his head, the two of them forming the “O-H” of Ohio State’s “O-H-I-O.”
Several hours later, after everything had gone wrong, they left without sulking. Haskins dressed and headed to an honest, grown-up news conference he never would have given last year. Young lingered on the field to shake hands with Browns players and coaches, then limped off with his head looking up. As the future of the Washington Football Team, neither could afford to be destroyed by a Sunday that neither wanted to have.
They have to keep looking forward, even on a day when little went right.
Read more on the Washington Football Team: Four takeaways from Washington’s 34-20 loss to the Browns Offensive line coaches play a pivotal role for NFL teams. Meet Washington’s John Matsko. Dwayne Haskins expresses frustration over decision in Breonna Taylor case
