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Washington Football Team: Dwayne Haskins and the fallacy of elite college productivity

By Jonathan Eig

CLEVELAND, OHIO - SEPTEMBER 27: Dwayne Haskins #7 of the Washington Football Team looks on prior to the game against the Cleveland Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium on September 27, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OHIO - SEPTEMBER 27: Dwayne Haskins #7 of the Washington Football Team looks on prior to the game against the Cleveland Browns at FirstEnergy Stadium on September 27, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /
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MIAMI, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 02: Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrates after throwing a touchdown pass against the San Francisco 49ers during the fourth quarter in Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium on February 02, 2020 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FLORIDA – FEBRUARY 02: Patrick Mahomes #15 of the Kansas City Chiefs celebrates after throwing a touchdown pass against the San Francisco 49ers during the fourth quarter in Super Bowl LIV at Hard Rock Stadium on February 02, 2020 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /

Other young QBs that have found success

Enough about Haskins. Lets’ expand the conversation. In the NFL today, there are 11 young quarterbacks (under 30 years old) who have been selected to the Pro Bowl. Of those 11, guess how many of them played for a top-25 team their final year in college?

I’ll give you a minute.

The answer is four. And one of them doesn’t even start in the NFL anymore.

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Deshaun Watson led his Clemson team to a national championship. Kyler Murray, Teddy Bridgewater, and Jameis Winston all quarterbacked teams to top-15 finishes.

But that means that seven of those eleven, who have had enough success at the professional level to be chosen for the Pro Bowl, played for college teams that were certainly not elite.

Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jared Goff, Derek Carr, Dak Prescott, and Carson Wentz were not surrounded by loads and loads of talent. (OK – Wentz actually did lead a team to a championship, but it was the FCS championship, which means the overall level of talent he played with and against was a cut below the top tier in D1.)

Allen, Jackson, and Goff led teams that each lost five games during their final seasons. And Mahomes – the player every single scout would choose were he starting a team today – quarterbacked a team to a 5-7 record. Clearly, he was not surrounded by a wealth of NFL talent.

To be fair, Mahomes’ Texas Tech team lost a lot of those games due to their porous defense. In five of those seven losses, they put up excellent offensive numbers. However, with the exception of wide receivers Keke Coutee and Dylan Cantrell (currently residing on the WFT practice squad) none of Mahomes’ offensive teammates have been drafted by an NFL franchise.

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