He may not be a quarterback’s coach in the NFL, but Doug Williams, the Senior VP of Player Development, still has a strong hand in the molding of Washington Redskins quarterback Dwayne Haskins.
More than the X’s and O’s, though, Williams knows what Haskins is facing as a young black man in the NFL. As the first African-American quarterback to win the Super Bowl, it’s hard to find a better mentor for Haskins to learn from. While Haskins works through his first offseason as an NFL QB, hoping to make a jump in Year 2, Williams has been right there with him, in constant contact. According to Redskins.com, his number one advice has been this: “wear the coaches out.”
“He’s got to stay in the facility until they run him out of the building,” Williams said. “That’s the important thing. All that other stuff shouldn’t matter to Dwayne at this point. It should be, ‘Coach, what can I do? Can I do this? Can I do that?’ until they say, ‘Hey, Dwayne, we’re gonna turn the lights out because we’re going home.'”
If Haskins can commit to the ‘first-one-in, last-one-out’ mentality, he absolutely has the skill-set to become a successful QB in the NFL. It is just going to take the preparation to get him there. We saw the slight improvement from the start of his rookie season to the end of it, and if the hard work for Haskins continues this offseason, we will undoubtedly be able to witness a significant jump in Year 2 as well.
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