Welcome to Washington football. Don’t let the QB spin cycle make you sick.
“There’s some mistakes that showed up that frankly were repeat kind of mistakes,” said Scott Turner, the offensive coordinator and play caller, who added later: “You see things happening over and over and over again.”
There was window dressing, of course — about how Haskins could benefit from stepping back, about how he was robbed of normal and essential offseason practices by the novel coronavirus pandemic, about how maybe he will get better from this. Not providing window dressing would have meant Wednesday was a public undressing of Haskins — which is exactly what it should be read as. And it keeps Washington in its perpetual spin cycle, permanently incapable of finding a solution at the most important position in North American sports: NFL quarterback.
All you need to know about Rivera’s decision Wednesday is this: He has a team that is a major development project, yet he looked at the standings in the NFC East — which appears to be garbage — then at the next four games on the schedule, three against teams from that sad sack division. And he decided Kyle Allen — who was benched in his final year of college, was selected by no one in the NFL draft and threw 16 interceptions and fumbled 13 times for Carolina last season — gives Washington a better chance to win than Haskins, a first-round pick in 2019 who is coming off the first 300-yard game of his NFL career.
There’s no mystery here. There is no other reason to make this move unless Rivera not only believes Haskins hasn’t gotten it but that he won’t get it.
“One thing a lot of people don’t see is the frustration on the sidelines of the other players as well,” Rivera said. “I look at that. I see that. I feel that. The guys want to win. And right now, where his development is, I think our best shot to win now is with guys that have been in the system.”
By now, this can’t be surprising around here, right? Quarterback churn is woven into the DNA of Daniel Snyder’s franchise. The owner is a major reason. There is an unmistakable, unarguable link between stability at quarterback and winning games. The flip side of that applies here: a revolving door at quarterback goes arm-in-arm with losing.
Allen will be the 22nd quarterback to start a game for Washington since the turn of this century. In that time, only eight teams have started 20 or more quarterbacks — including Washington, which ranks behind only Cleveland (28) and Chicago (24). Half of those teams — Buffalo, Arizona, Washington and Cleveland — rank in the bottom seven in winning percentage over that time. Only one, Denver, ranks in the top 15.
Here’s another fun one. When Allen takes the first snap Sunday, he will be Washington’s eighth starting quarterback since 2018. Green Bay has used five starters since 2000.
And now they’re probably starting over again.
Think of it this way: The new coach has labeled this entire season about development to the (absolutely absurd) point that he has refused to call timeouts near the ends of games. That’s in the interest, he has said, of keeping his players healthy, of thinking of the long term, of building his program. The ramifications of Wednesday’s decision, then, are clear: Rivera already believes Allen has a better chance of winning games as the starter than Haskins does. That’s a pretty dramatic statement.
The only constant for this franchise this century, of course, has been in the owner’s box, with cataclysmic results. Every time Snyder changes coaches — which he has done nine times — we lament his inability to find the right leader and provide autonomy. They are legitimate gripes, and they have adversely impacted the franchise.
More important, though, has been Snyder’s inability to land a franchise quarterback. That failure, a hallmark of this era of Washington football, has spanned the tenure of every coach he has employed. Norv Turner had Brad Johnson and Jeff George and Tony Banks. Steve Spurrier had Danny Wuerffel and Shane Matthews and Patrick Ramsey and Tim Hasselbeck. Joe Gibbs had Ramsey and Mark Brunell and Jason Campbell and Todd Collins. Mike Shanahan ousted Campbell but had Donovan McNabb thrust on him by the owner, then turned to Rex Grossman and John Beck before Snyder pushed to trade up in the 2012 draft to select Robert Griffin III. Jay Gruden inherited Griffin and Kirk Cousins, and since Cousins left for free agency, Washington has traded for Alex Smith, traded for Case Keenum, drafted Haskins — and now turned to Allen.
It’s. Just. Exhausting.
And it’s clear Rivera didn’t want Haskins, either. It just leaves infinite items to unpack — again.
If Rivera was so uncertain about Haskins — a reasonable assessment — why not pursue Cam Newton, who was once an MVP under Rivera with Carolina and was a free agent? Why not take Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa or Oregon’s Justin Herbert in the draft? Haskins won’t even dress Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams. Will he ever start here again?
More than that: Who’s your money on to be the starter in 2021?
Okay, deep breaths. Given the magnitude of Wednesday’s decision, Rivera said he talked to Snyder before informing the quarterbacks.
“He said, ‘Ron, it’s your football team,’ ” Rivera said. “ ‘Those are decisions you’re going to make. You’re going to live with those decisions.’ I said: ‘Yes, sir. I am.’ He said: ‘I’m all supportive. I’m behind you 100 percent.’ ”
Snyder, of course, was less than truthful in that conversation. It’s not Rivera’s football team. It’s Snyder’s. In more than two decades as owner, he hasn’t solved the quarterback problem. Now he has left Rivera to try to clean up his mess. If he does, the bet here is it won’t be with Haskins, and it won’t be with Allen. It will be with somebody else, and we will start this all over again because we always do.
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