Tag: Doug Williams

Doug Williams wants Dwayne Haskins to ‘wear the coaches out’ with offseason work

Williams is encouraging the Redskins young QB to be so exhaustive with his game study that the coaches ‘run him out of the building.’

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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Doug Williams excited to see what Dwayne Haskins can do with new staff

Williams says Haskins should have full support this year.

Washington Redskins quarterback Dwayne Haskins seems to understand he’ll be in a quarterback competition under the supervision of new head coach Ron Rivera.

And he fully embraces it.

For a front-office member like Doug Williams though, it’s merely nice to see Haskins get a shot with a coaching staff willing to give him a chance from the opening gun, per Peter Hailey of NBC Sports:

“He didn’t have the opportunity last year where the coaches put their arms around him. I think he’s got to know that we want you to be good. I think now, with the new staff coming in, and what he did towards the end of the year, he’s going to give this new staff an opportunity to say, ‘Hey, we need to work with this kid to get the best out of him.’ That’s the positive thing that Dwayne has on his side.”

Haskins notoriously didn’t have full-fledged support last year before Jay Gruden got fired. Bill Callahan and Co. eventually worked him into things as the season progressed.

As Williams notes, Haskins has backing this time and it’s in his hands to prove to Rivera he’s the one.

This doesn’t mean the Redskins won’t add quarterbacks through free agency or the draft. But it does seem to vibe as if Haskins has a much better chance this time around from the start.

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Former Redskin greats share stories about the meaning of Super Bowl rings

With 3 Super Bowl victories in franchise history, there are a number of former Redskins who have stories about what the ring means to them.

Though young fans may not have memories of it, the Washington Redskins used to be a dominant team in the NFL, and they have several Super Bowl championships to show for it.

Ahead of the Kansas City Cheifs and San Francisco 49ers matchup in Super Bowl LIV in a couple of weeks, ESPN put together a montage of stories from each Super Bowl in the past 53 years, centering around the rings that were handed out to players, and what was done with those rings in the years following. For the Redskins, who won Super Bowl XVII, XXII, and XXVI, there are some great anecdotes that came out.

For wide receiver Alvin Garrett, who won his ring in 1982, the prized possession ended up becoming more of a piece of jewelry that served a greater goal in the end. According to the ESPN piece, in 1989, Garrett sold the ring via an ad in The Washington Post to fund his desire to become a minister.

“I flew to La Guardia in New York and the guy paid me cash for it,” Garrett said. “My life was so screwed up I needed God.” In 2016, someone who worked in the jewelry business in New York was picking through a box of items. The person found Garrett’s damaged ring with the diamonds missing and contacted the Redskins, who located Garrett, living in Huntsville, Alabama.

For quarterback Doug Williams, who became the first-ever black QB to start and win a Super Bowl in 1987, the ring signifies so much more than it’s worth in gold. Williams told ESPN that he still keeps it in the case, and he plans to hand it down to his family one day.

“They all want to touch it; they all want to put their hands around it and they all say, ‘Wow, what a great day. Man, I prayed for you.’ It’s bringing back memories for them because it was such a history-making day. The people from where I grew up, it’s almost like they wear that ring. That day will never happen again in the history of football; there will never be another first African American quarterback to win.”

For running back Brian Mitchell, who won his ring in 1991, a close call almost left him without his prized possession that was won in Super Bowl XXVI. It was years later when Mitchell wore his ring on a night out drinking and woke up the next morning without it.

“When it’s real cold, your fingers seem smaller,” he said. That’s why he guessed: Maybe it’s still in the limousine. He called the driver, who opened the door and found it stuck in the door jamb.

It’s understandable why Mitchell says that he rarely wears his ring anymore, especially when he is going out with friends.

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Breaking down the Redskins power dynamic heading into 2020

With Bruce Allen out of the picture, the pyramid of power has shifted greatly in Washington, with Ron Rivera calling the shots.

Incremental change is what the Washington Redskins needed after a fourth-consecutive season without a playoff berth, and incremental change is what they got.

Bruce Allen is gone. Ron Rivera is in. Larry Hess is gone. Ryan Vermillion and Larry Wilk are in. Eric Schaffer is gone. Doug Williams is in a new role. Any which way you look at it, the power dynamic in Washington has changed, and according to NBC Sports Washington, this is now how it looks.

Dan Snyder — Team Owner
Aug 29, 2019; Landover, MD, USA; Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder on the field before the game against the Baltimore Ravens at FedExField. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

Of course, as the owner of the team, Snyder remains at the top of the power pyramid. Though he may endlessly say that head coach Ron Rivera is the only voice that matters in the organization, it is still his final stamp of approval that is needed on every major decision that happens. As long as Snyder is the owner of the team, it will be his word that goes.

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This Redskins GM candidate makes almost too much sense under Ron Rivera

The Redskins are still searching for a new GM, and if Rivera gets to make the hire, it would make sense to look at his former colleague.

The Washington Redksins organizational staff has undergone a litany of changes since the start of the new year, and many of them are just a handful of days old, with the front office experiencing a major shakeup late last week.

After it was announced that Eric Schaffer — a longtime front office member for the Redskins — would be leaving, and Doug Williams, the VP of Player Personnel and former Super Bowl-winning QB in Washington, would be changing his role, it was clear that head coach Ron Rivera was taking his power to heart. When he was introduced as the man in Washington, team owner Dan Snyder said that it was Rivera’s voice that would be prevalent in the organization, and what he said would go. If that sentiment is to be believed, then we can use that knowledge to project who the next general manager will be for the Redskins.

Based on Rivera’s propensity to team up with old coworkers that he had in Carolina with the Panthers, it seems like the current GM in Carolina, Marty Hurney could be making the trip to Washington.

According to a recent piece from The Athletic, Rivera’s un-rivaled power in the Redskins’ organization could lead him to continue his sack of Carolina, in a sense.

At least one person close to Rivera reminded the new coach that putting the band back together might not be ideal, considering the Panthers missed the postseason in three of the last four seasons.

Then again, Rivera did not have the final say on various personnel matters at Carolina, including the annual draft. Now he does. If the two-time NFL coach of the year winner believes in his teammates, welcome aboard.

Maybe Panthers general manager Marty Hurney joins the masses taking the express train from Charlotte to Ashburn.

Of course, Hurney is currently under contract in Carolina until 2020, and there doesn’t seem to be too much turmoil in the Panthers’ camp between owner and GM. But still, Hurney was rumored to be linked to the Redskins job even before Rivera was hired, and if we are to follow recent trends in coaching hires under the former Carolina man, this would make a great deal of sense.

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Redskins shake up front office, reassigning Doug Williams to player development

Williams was previously a major part of player personnel, but he will be moved to player development now, reporting directly to Ron Rivera.

The Washington Redskins made a few major moves in the front office on Thursday, where they most recently named Doug Williams as the Senior Vice President of Player Development, where he will report directly to new head coach Ron Rivera.

Previously, Williams acted as the Senior Vice President of Player Personnel for the Redskins, where he worked on scouting players for the team. This move is to act as a complete overhaul, as Williams will no longer be working with the evaluation of players, but rather their development once they are with the program.

This announcement comes just hours after it was reported that the team was parting ways with longtime front office person Eric Schaffer, who was the VP of Football Operations in Washington. Schaffer was at one time considered to be a candidate for the Redskins general manager opening, but as time went on, it appeared that the team was likely to move on from him instead.

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