While Washington quarterback Dwayne Haskins has taken a lot of flack already in his single year in the NFL, there are a number of people who still hold onto a great amount of optimism for this young player in the future.
An offseason of hard work and training has gotten him as ready for football as he’s ever been, and the situation surrounding him in Washington seems to be better off than it was last year, though that may be hard to believe with the recent dramas that have been swirling inside the team’s front office.
It’ hard to predict exactly how Haskins’ second-year in the NFL will play out, but the expectations are higher than they were in 2019. Recently, in a conversation with NFL Network, Pro Football Focus analyst George Chahrouri broke down the top five quarterbacks in the 2019 draft class, and he wasn’t shy about heaping some praise on Haskins, ranking him at No. 2 behind Kyler Murray, and ahead of Daniel Jones.
“They still don’t have a team name — I can’t report anything there — but they do have a quarterback,” said Chahrouri. “Dwayne Haskins started out his NFL career in a terrible situation. It was not pretty in Washington, yet he still earned a higher PFF grade than Daniel Jones over the course of the season, and particularly in that second half.”
Though he was thrown to the fire and asked to start in Week 4 against the Giants — something he clearly wasn’t ready for as was apparent by his zero TD, 3 INT stat line — Haskins didn’t become the real starting QB in Washington until Week 8. Even then, it wasn’t until Week 11 that he got a feeling for the game around him. From that time on, Haskins threw 5 touchdowns and two interceptions, totaling 867 total yards and picking up his first two career wins along the way.
“After the bye week, he got his feet underneath him. He was actually the 10th highest-rated quarterback from Week 11 onward,” said Chahrouri. “He’s got a chance just this year with Terry McLaurin I think to really put himself in the top half of the league potentially as a quarterback, and that’s how he squeaks by Daniel Jones here.”
None of this is to say that it will be a cake-walk going forward for Haskins and his Washington teammates; there is still some tough sledding ahead. However, Fans of Haskins and the Washington TBD’s can at least feel confident that they have something on their hands that they can work with going forward, and they might be able to stop looking so desperately for that QB of the future.
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