The Washington Football Team released former first-round pick Dwayne Haskins on Monday, and CBS Sports NFL insider Jason La Canfora wasn’t the least bit surprised.
“This was a fait accompli,” La Canfora said on The DA Show. “He had no future in the organization. The only reason that he was still there on Sunday was because of their situation with still being alive for the postseason and because of the perilous situation at quarterback. Ron Rivera felt like he needed Haskins to try to win this football game, but Haskins had no future beyond that point in which he was no longer helping keep alive a playoff push. By the third quarter, he was no longer playing football for them. So no, I’m not surprised in the least.”
Washington (6-9) benched Haskins after a Week 4 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. At that point, the die was cast.
“It was clear to both parties at that point that Dwayne Haskins would not be with the Washington Football Team in 2021, but they were unable to move him at the deadline – and they didn’t really try,” La Canfora said. “They didn’t market him the way they could have, either, but it’s not like teams were knocking down the door to get Dwayne Haskins in the middle of the year. They didn’t thing they’d need to play him again, obviously injuries proved otherwise, they used him out of desperation for a few weeks, and then the incident violating the COVID protocols obviously cemented everything.”
Washington selected Haskins with the 15th overall pick in 2019. He played in 15 games over two seasons with Washington and threw 12 touchdown passes and 14 interceptions.
“There were real questions about how he should be brought along,” La Canfora said. “An organization like Washington, it’s where careers have gone to die – coaches, quarterbacks, across the board. Are they going to have the infrastructure, are they going to have the wherewithal, are they going to be able to nurture this kid? Or are they going to throw him to the wolves? He got caught in a game of chess between Jay Gruden and Dan Snyder, and Jay Gruden ended up playing him way before he should have played.”
Gruden was fired an 0-5 start in 2019.
“Gruden was trying to get his way out of there as soon as possible, and a lot of people thought he would have been fired before that season started,” La Canfora said. “It ended up he was fired very early in that season, and on the way out, Dwayne Haskins’ career started getting torpedoed. So this kid’s got a lot to work on, but that organization has a ways to go before it looks functional, before you could say that that’s the right village to raise a quarterback. Ron Rivera is making some changes, but there’s things going on right now way above Ron Rivera’s head that don’t exactly portend that this organization has turned a corner. There’s some better people there now, but they got a ways to go. You got to prove it.”