Washington Football Team considering rotating Alex Smith, Taylor Heinicke vs. Bucs

Ron Rivera says the Washington Football Team could rotate QBs against the Bucs.

The Washington Football Team made the NFL playoffs despite dealing with major issues at the quarterback spot. They have played four different players at the position including three starters and ahead of their playoff game against the Buccaneers, there are questions about the quarterback spot.

As evidenced by Washington’s NFC East-clinching win over the Philadelphia Eagles, Alex Smith is far less than 100 percent healthy. He’s dealing with a calf injury in his surgically repaired leg, and because of that, he struggled to drive into his throws with his back leg and wasn’t able to move around much in the pocket.

With Smith struggling, the Eagles teed off on him and that made it very hard for Washington to score. He did lead a couple of really nice scoring drives, but aside from that, the offense struggled to move the ball.

Because of that, some fans were calling for Washington to switch to Taylor Heinicke at quarterback this week. A move to Heinicke outright doesn’t seem likely at this point, but as reported by NBC Sports Washington’s JP Finlay, Ron Rivera is considering rotating Heinicke and Smith against the Buccaneers.

Two-quarterback systems rarely work in the NFL, or at any level of football for that matter. But this could — keyword could — work out for Washington because of the unique issues their QBs are facing. Playing less of the game would allow Smith to conserve some of his energy and potentially lead a few drives closer to full strength. That would afford him an opportunity to lead a couple of scoring drives as he did against the Eagles and try to help keep Washington’s offense on schedule while keeping him healthy.

Meanwhile, Heinicke could serve as a more athletic quarterback option and give the Buccaneers a different look when he’s on the field. He would be able to scramble more and negate some of the pressure that Todd Bowles likes to dial up with blitzes, so that could keep the defense off-balance.

Of course, there is a massive risk with this system as well. If one quarterback is playing well, yanking him just to give another guy reps is far from ideal. And if that quarterback struggles, it can throw the entire offensive rhythm out of whack. That’s why no teams in the NFL use this system.

That said, some squads that have mobile quarterbacks use them to run Wildcat/RPO type plays in certain packages. Perhaps using Heinicke, a good athlete, in that type of system could work out well.

Still, at the end of the day, it seems more likely that Rivera will choose one option as his starter and go with him. The decision may be based on what Smith can do in practice. We’ll soon see what happens, but all we know now is that Rivera has a decision to make.

And it won’t be an easy one if Smith isn’t 100 percent healthy.