Washington Football Team quarterback Dwayne Haskins was benched during their game against the Carolina Panthers on Sunday. Following the game, it was announced that the Football Team was going to release the second-year quarterback. How did we get here?
Dwayne Haskins was drafted 15th overall in the 2019 NFL Draft by the then Washington “Redskins” after a successful career at Ohio State University. Fans thought they had found their franchise quarterback but his performance wasn’t exactly stellar. Pair that with his not so smart actions off the field during the pandemic and the Football Team decided to remove his captaincy. The final straw was playing poorly against the Panthers on Sunday.
Haskins breached Covid-19 protocol two times during this season. The first came when Washington was playing in New York, Haskins’s home town, as the young quarterback made a reservation for a family friend to come to the team’s hotel. His second came more recently right after the loss to Seattle, Haskins was seen mask less at his girlfriend’s birthday party with several strippers around. He was fined $40,000 and stripped of his captaincy.
In a tweet Haskins owned up to his mistakes and took responsibility:
“I take full responsibility for not meeting the standards of a NFL QB & will become a better man & player because of this experience.”
Coach of the Football Team, Ron Rivera, had this to say regarding Haskins in a media session:
“Sometimes you have to go through hard knocks. Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you can dig your way back out of it. Sometimes a change helps,” Rivera said. “With Dwayne, it’s: What have you learned? What are you going to take from these experiences that are going to help you grow and get better? That’s the big thing with him and the thing I hope he learns from these experiences. Hopefully, they’ll make him stronger and they’ll help him and, hopefully, when he gets his next opportunity, he’ll make the best of it.”
Hopefully for Haskins, he gets some motivation and perspective from this and works to comeback a better player as he is still extremely young and very talented. But for now, his time in the NFL is done.
