DeAngelo Hall considers himself a 'Dwayne Haskins guy,' so it pains him to be honest about how he sees the quarterback situation developing in Washington.
Hall earlier this month riled up Redskins fans with his candid thoughts on NFL Network, when he shared the following with regard to Haskins: "I love the kid, but I don't know how he wins the starting job, man." Hall expanded on that belief during a Saturday appearance with The Sports Junkies on 106.7 The Fan.
"Anybody who's a realist understands the severity of the state of our country right now," said Hall. "You guys are probably working from home. Things are shut down. And so to think that Dwayne Haskins, who hasn't necessarily shown the most production in the National Football League yet as far as understanding defenses and understanding offenses, and what guys are trying to do with their offenses.
"You put him in a brand new offense, as opposed to a guy like Kyle Allen – who's been in this offense, who's played games in this offense, who's won games in this offense, who's kind of took his bumps and bruises in this offense – and then you think about what is this offseason gonna look like for Dwayne Haskins."
"How much time is he gonna get with his coaches?" Hall continued. "How much time is he gonna get on the field, preparing and learning this playbook?"
"You can do all the Zoom media conferences you want in the world, and try to meet and try to install this offense to a guy," he said, "but there's nothing like being on the football field learning it and doing it, especially when it's your first time.
"And so I'm just concerned with when you bring a guy like Kyle Allen in here, who at one point during the season, guys, I don't know how much the Washington market cared about Carolina, but I know when I was doing national stuff, the way Kyle Allen was playing early on, he was pushing Cam Newton out the door. And now you see obviously Kyle Allen is gone, but so is Cam Newton. Kyle Allen took an MVP out of his throne, and so Kyle Allen is a very capable quarterback."
"To sit here and think that Kyle Allen is just a backup, is another Colt McCoy, is probably naive to think," he said. "Kyle Allen is a starter in this league, and so when given the right opportunity, and he knows these coaches; these coaches know him, they know he works, how he thinks, they know how hard he's gonna work. They didn't know anything about Dwayne Haskins. It's the reason Ron Rivera said he didn't want to pay Quinton Dunbar. I don't know you. I need to make sure you can fit into my culture."
"He knows what Kyle Allen will bring to the table," Hall continued. "He's still trying to figure out Dwayne Haskins. Like I said, the kind of coach Ron Rivera is, watching Dwayne Haskins take a picture during a game probably didn't resonate very well with just the mindset of a Coach Ron Rivera's type of team."
Hall believes the situation in Washington is shaping up to be a "wide open" race between Haskins and Allen at quarterback.
"And so you take all of those things into consideration and this quarterback race is wide open," he said. "I'm a Dwayne Haskins guy, and so I don't necessarily like it, but the Washington Redskin fanbase should be ecstatic because it's gonna breed competition. And that's what Coach Rivera wanted, he wanted competition across the board."
"Dwayne Haskins was a first-round draft pick last year – I think number 15th overall – and to think that he might not start kind of gives you feelings of Josh Doctson, and wanting that dude to jump on the scene and be that first-round pick you wanted him to be," Hall said.
"And so having lived through some of those first-round picks that didn't turn out very well, I can kinda see the writing on the wall," he said. "I hope Dwayne Haskins sees this as an opportunity to rise to the occasion and he beats out Kyle Allen, because that's ultimately what you want.
"You want Dwayne Haskins to see that at this point he's losing the fight, and see how hard he jumps back in this ring, and throws punches and learns, and delves into this playbook. I'm just not very confident with the way the league is going right now, with this country. I just don't know how much time he'll have to try to make up that ground on Kyle Allen, because Kyle Allen is ahead in the race right now. Like I said, we'd all be naive to think that Kyle Allen isn't ahead right now."
Related:
Collins: Haskins just needs a coach 'that has faith in him'
Urban Meyer gives telling insight into Dwayne Haskins
Should we believe this Redskins-Jordan Love report?
DHall: I don't know how Haskins beats out Allen
SNIDER: The XFL deserved better