Washington Football Team: Year-end awards for 2020

Negative moments

Worst Free Agent Pickup: Sean Davis

Coach Rivera and the front office brought in Sean Davis to be one of the starting safeties. It was a nice story as Davis had attended the University of Maryland, not far from the Football Team’s home stadium. However, it was all for naught as Davis was cut less than six months later with the team out a $2 million signing bonus. He never played a down for the team.

Worst Injury: Kelvin Harmon 

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Harmon was entering his sophomore season and tore his ACL while training for camp. He finished his rookie year with 30 receptions for 365 yards and was potentially slated to start across from Terry McLaurin. Washington struggled in finding a WR2 to play across from Terry McLaurin and having Harmon could potentially have solved that problem.

Expectation vs. Reality Award: Bryce Love 

Bryce Love has been a tease for this team since he was drafted. After having a phenomenal career at Stanford, Love fell to Washington in the fourth round of the 2019 draft after suffering a torn ACL in his last college game. He missed his rookie season while recovering from his injury, and many fans had high hopes for him in the 2020 season.

Love was on injured reserve with knee swelling but returned to practice briefly before the team decided to leave him on IR. Two years later, he has yet to play a snap for Washington after many pundits thought he might have been a steal in the 2019 draft. It’s looking more and more like he won’t fulfill his expected potential with Washington.

Worst Overall Year Award: Dwayne Haskins

I hate to pile on the kid, but can you think of someone on the team that had a worse year than Dwayne Haskins? This isn’t even solely about his play on the field. He was coming into his second season having to learn a new offense in a COVID-impacted season. On top of that, the new regime brought in Kyle Allen, who was familiar with the team’s offense, signaling that they didn’t have full faith in Haskins.

After making an impression early in the season and winning the starting job, it was reported that something changed and Haskins’ practice habits and overall preparation fell off. Consequently, his play on the field also didn’t rise to a level that was expected from the coaching staff, leading to his benching, which was followed by an undisclosed sickness where he was away from the team.

Upon getting another shot at the starting job, Haskins didn’t show much growth on the field and despite talking about maturing as a person, was seen partying maskless after the team’s loss to Seattle. He was fined $40,000 for the violation but kept on the team as Washington had injury issues at quarterback.

After a subpar performance against the Panthers, where he was outplayed by Taylor Heinicke, who had just joined the team, the coaching staff had enough and decided to cut Haskins loose.

What could have been a Cinderella story with a local QB becoming the future face of the franchise turned into an unnecessary drama-filled season that ended with Haskins without a job.

Biggest Step Back Award: Steven Sims

Steven Sims was one of the gems that Washington brought in as an undrafted free agent in 2019. After pulling in 34 passes for 310 yards his rookie year, his numbers dropped to 27 receptions for 265 yards in 2020. Now, in itself, that isn’t much of a dropoff, but Sims’ touchdowns fell from five to one, while his fumbles increased from one to five.

Most Washington Thing Ever Award: As much of the fanbase has come to expect, when the team experiences some success, there is usually a shoe waiting to drop somewhere.

This season, it was raining Nikes as multiple shoes dropped throughout the season. In the middle of a new coaching regime, the team had to deal with allegations of workplace sexual harassment,  constant in-fighting between the ownership group, the news regarding owner Daniel Snyder’s sexual misconduct settlement, the name change, Dwayne Haskins’ COVID violations, and more.

Most Gut-Wrenching Moment Award: Alex Smith Meets Aaron Donald

When Kyle Allen was knocked out of the Rams game and Haskins was inactive, Alex Smith had to return to the field for the first time since his traumatic leg injury.

After Smith got on the field and completed his first pass, many were happy and already making mentions of the Comeback Player of the Year Award. Two plays later, Aaron Donald jumped on Smith’s back as he was sacking him.

In that moment, it was gut-wrenching to see if Smith’s leg would be able to hold up under all that weight. After Smith bounced back up, the world collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

The 2020 season had ups and downs for Washington, but overall the team made progress. Let’s see if year two of Rivera’s rebuild brings a long-term answer at quarterback. Solving that challenge will go a long way towards establishing Washington as a perennial contender for years to come.