Why the Washington Football Team should stick with Kyle Allen at QB
By Tim Payne
This piece is part of the Riggo’s Rag Roundtable quarterback debate. For more Washington Football Team QB options, click here.
The very title of this article probably has a large percentage of fans running for the comments section to bite my head off.
But given the options available, the only free agent QB Washington should be signing this offseason is Kyle Allen, their “Exclusive Rights Free Agent” who’s rehabbing his ankle injury.
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Why the Washington Football Team should stick with Kyle Allen at QB
Like many fans, I was glad they worked toward trading for Matt Stafford. Like many fans, I was heartened by the news they were interested in Derek Carr if he became available.
But the idea of trading for Marcus Mariota, Teddy Bridgewater, or Sam Darnold should make reasonable WFT fans get a little nauseous. Shelling out $12 million to $21 million for bottom-third-of-the-league quarterback production is bad enough. But using draft capital for the privilege? That’s a bridge too far.
Sometimes, fans get stuck on the idea of upgrading the QB position, and forget that, as Joe Theisman says, “Quarterback is the most dependent position in sports.”
Trading for an average or worse QB will still cost at least a fourth-round pick. Don’t forget, Washington has added: Cole Holcomb, Matt Ioannidis, Kamren Curl, Tim Settle, Jamison Crowder, and Kirk Cousins in the fourth-round or later in recent years.
Add that draft capital to the already steep cost of their contracts, and the choice to trade for one of these guys starts to look like front office management malpractice.
Washington signing Kyle Allen, who is an ERFA, will likely cost them somewhere around $2.5M for 2021. That would set up a genuine quarterback competition between Kyle Allen and Taylor Heinicke.
Assuming Washington then cuts Alex Smith, they would have over $50 million in cap space available to build the rest of the team. And all of their draft assets as well.
Taylor Heinicke (64.3) and Kyle Allen (74.5) both posted better QBR than Darnold (40.1), Bridgewater (64.2). And Mariota’s QBR in 2019 (the last time he was a starter), was 35.5. The old saying goes, “you get what you pay for”.
But in the free-agent quarterback world, that’s just not the case. You usually overpay for names unless you’re able to land one of the big fish. Washington swung big on Stafford. They missed. They shouldn’t waste draft capital and cap space on guys with name recognition and inferior production.
The reality is, the Washington Football Team’s best chance of winning the NFC East again in 2021 is to let Kyle Allen and Taylor Heinicke battle it out for the starting QB job surrounded by the young core from 2020, $50 million worth of free-agent additions and a full complement of draft picks.
Trust the process. Build the right way. Don’t overspend for guys that have proven to be mediocre at best. Sign Kyle Allen and don’t get blinded by the flash of free agency.
Next. More Riggo's Rag Roundtable QB picks. dark
Click the links below to read about each QB option.