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After Washington’s latest loss to the Denver Broncos in Week 8, head coach Ron Rivera met with the media to discuss another ugly performance.
Washington fell to 2-6 on the season after its fourth consecutive loss. Offensively, Washington struggled to get out of its own way, as the team managed just 10 points for the second consecutive week, and has scored a total of 33 points over the last three games.
With the bye week upcoming, Rivera felt it was a good time to evaluate the entire team.
“The big thing we have to figure out, going forward, is where are we? That’s the nice thing about this bye week,” Rivera said per Ethan Cadeaux of NBC Sports Washington. “We’ll get the chance to re-evaluate and take a look at a lot of things, kind of come out next week about where we’re headed.”
Naturally, Rivera was asked if that evaluation involves the quarterback position, too.
“Yeah,” Rivera said when asked. “I’m going to evaluate all [22] positions you have.”
Washington quarterback Taylor Heinicke had another up-and-down day in Sunday’s loss to the Broncos. There was good, such as a beautiful touchdown pass to DeAndre Carter for Washington’s only touchdown. And there was bad, such as his final two drives inside the red zone.
It’s perfectly clear that Washington’s answer at the game’s most important position does not exist on this roster. Heinicke can be a very good long-term backup, something current backup, Kyle Allen, can be, too. Veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick is at the end of his career and was never the long-term plan.
This is who Heinicke is, he is not suddenly going to change his ways. His arm strength isn’t going to improve overnight. His decision-making isn’t going to change. So, now it’s time for Rivera to see if this roster is good enough for Washington to make a run, and if he believes it is with eight games remaining, he owes it to the rest of the team to see what Allen can do.