Washington is going with Dwayne Haskins as its starting quarterback. We might see Kyle Allen or Alex Smith at some point, but at least for now, Haskins is the starter.
Ron Rivera says he likes the way Haskins is progressing. Washington has a first-round pick invested in him, so it makes sense to see what he can do.
Allen played for this coaching staff last year, so I won’t be surprised if he gets in there before long (and is more effective, given his stronger background in the system).
Haskins was pretty dreadful in his limited playing time last year, averaging only 175 yards in the games he started.
I played around with the numbers some on this one. The track record for these kind of quarterbacks isn’t very good. That is, it’s rare to see a guy play poorly in his first year, then come back and play well in his second.
Below is the list of all quarterbacks selected in the first round in the last 20 years who started at least seven games as a rookie and averaged under 15 fantasy points per game (I’m looking at per-game numbers, rather than per-season). There are 11 of them, and Haskins is the 12th.
Of those previous 11, only three came back in Year No. 2 and put up top-20 fantasy per-game numbers (using traditional scoring) – Eli Manning, Jared Goff and Mitchell Trubisky. (T-Biscuit was helped along by really good rushing production).
I don’t see Haskins as a quarterback anybody should be getting too excited about. There are definitely 28 teams with quarterbacks I would rank ahead of him. When we’re considering Haskins, it would be in comparison with guys from the Dolphins (Tua/Fitz), Bears (Foles/Trubisky), Chargers (Taylor/Herbert) and even Kyle Allen.
| STRUGGLING QUARTERBACKS (2nd year) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | St | Pass | TDP | Run | TDR | Rk | Imp? |
| 2006 | Alex Smith, S.F. | 16 | 181 | 1.00 | 9 | .13 | 25 | 84% |
| 2012 | Blaine Gabbert, Jac. | 10 | 166 | .90 | 6 | .00 | 31 | 9% |
| 2003 | David Carr, Hou. | 11 | 181 | .82 | 11 | .18 | 26 | 8% |
| 2005 | • Eli Manning, NYG | 16 | 235 | 1.50 | 5 | .06 | 6 | 72% |
| 2017 | • Jared Goff, L.A. | 15 | 254 | 1.87 | 3 | .07 | 11 | 78% |
| 2009 | Joe Flacco, Balt. | 16 | 226 | 1.31 | 4 | .00 | 21 | 14% |
| 2003 | Joey Harrington, Det. | 16 | 180 | 1.06 | 5 | .00 | 27 | 5% |
| 2019 | Josh Rosen, Mia. | 3 | 155 | .33 | 4 | .00 | -- | -28% |
| 2004 | Kyle Boller, Balt. | 16 | 160 | .81 | 12 | .06 | 31 | 11% |
| 2010 | Mark Sanchez, NYJ | 16 | 206 | 1.06 | 7 | .19 | 23 | 22% |
| 2018 | • Mitchell Trubisky, Chi. | 14 | 230 | 1.71 | 30 | .21 | 10 | 58% |
| 2020 | Dwayne Haskins, Was. | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
—Ian Allan