Washington Football Team: Where Dwayne Haskins ranks among franchise’s biggest busts
By Jonathan Eig
Where Dwayne Haskins ranks among Washington Football Team’s all-time busts.
Now that Dwayne Haskins’ Washington Football Team career has come to an unceremonious end, let’s consider where he ranks in terms of all-time Washington first-round draft busts.
Before jumping to the immediate “worst of all time” designation, we should consider a few historical factors.
First of all, I’m only looking back as far as 1960. The NFL draft was a very different animal back then – fewer teams, a lot more rounds, a lot less national scouting. But that’s also right around the time I was born, and I feel like I have a better handle on the players from 1960 on than I do on guys I only read about from 1940s.
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Besides, 1960 provides an excellent example of the tricky nature of rating draft picks. Washington, in 1960, selected a quarterback with the fourth overall pick. His name was Richie Lucas and he came out of Penn State He never played a down from Washington, or for any other NFL franchise.
Back then, the upstart AFL was doing all it could to lure players away from the NFL and they succeeded with Lucas.
So, was Richie Lucas a worse No. 1 draft pick than Dwayne Haskins?
Two years later, in 1962, Washington also selected a player who would never play a down for Washington, or for any other professional team. This time, it was the tragic case of Syracuse running back Ernie Davis, the consensus No. 1 player in the country.
Davis’ life was cut short by leukemia before he ever played in the NFL. But before his illness was diagnosed, Washington had traded his rights to Cleveland for future Hall-of-Famer Bobby Mitchell. So, judging merely on results, that was an outstanding pick.