Washington Football Team: Dwayne Haskins’ time may be coming again
The next step for Washington Football Team quarterback Dwayne Haskins may be approaching.
Sunday will be a true test to see just how much Haskins has grown over the course of those 10 weeks. Now to the skeptic, 10 weeks doesn’t sound like much time, and you’re right, but it sure seems like some of the bad habits have changed.
After Haskins was benched, reports surfaced about his maturity, including stat bragging about his stats in a loss to the Ravens, and displaying poor game preparation and study habits.
What we saw in last week’s game against the 49ers showed some progress. Instead of making low probablity throws, he stuck to short and intermediate passes in parts of the field where he has had the most success this season.
It wasn’t anything to brag about, but he finished 7-of-12 for 51 yards and led one scoring drive. He limited mistakes, throwing no interceptions and was sacked only once, albeit he only played one half.
The bigger growth that isn’t seen on the field, and can’t be explained with X’s and O’s, looks to be Haskins’ demeanor and attitude. He looks humbled. He looks grateful. It looks like he has taken the advice Coach Rivera had told him earlier in the season and worked on himself.
This is not the same kid that missed the final snap of a game because he was taking selfies with fans.
This is the Haskins that went and picked up Alex Smith after he was tackled on the Washington sideline in the Thanksgiving game against the Cowboys.
This is the Haskins that looked like he was praying on the sidelines in the 49ers game. The same Haskins that looked like he was going to break down and cry in the postgame press conference because being back on the field meant that much to him.
"I’m just thankful to get this win more so than anything. Tears came to my eyes as I was leaving the field, just thankful to be back on the grass again, because I didn’t know when I was going to be on the grass again."
Haskins talked about how this year is “probably the biggest amount of adversity I’ve faced since coming into this world” and that he has grown as a person. He acknowledged that he isn’t a finished product and is striving to be like the greats in the league.
Alex Smith has been setting the example in Washington, just like he did for Pat Mahomes in Kansas City, and the same way he did for Colin Kaepernick in San Francisco. It looks like Haskins is starting to pay attention and take that mentorship to heart.
"Having somebody like Alex in the room with me is a great example. He comes to work every day with his hat on and he grinds and he never complains. And he’s someone I look up to and he’s been helping me a lot throughout this whole process. He’s been through stuff like this before so he’s been a great person to lean on throughout this process."