The QB Controversy is as old as time in Washington. A near annual rite of passage for sports scribes covering the Football Team, especially so in the Dan Snyder era, in which 23 separate passers have taken snaps as a starting quarterback during Snyder's 22 years of ownership.
The off year resides few and far between.
2021 was supposed to be an on year. Ryan Fitzpatrick's arrival this spring foreshadowed it, an offseason driven by a QB competition between the grizzled, 38-year-old journeyman and Taylor Heinicke, the emergency QB who emerged from seemingly nowhere as a surprise star in Washington's lone playoff game in 2020.
Ron Rivera even portended this great QB competition, speaking it into existence with his own words, saying in April that Fitzpatrick would "come in as the No. 1... but there will be a competition." The dogs of QB War were all set to let slip. Until silence befell the Washington Football Team come August.
Suddenly, there was nary a mention of said QB competition. Fitzpatrick seamlessly assumed the majority of starter reps and Heinicke quietly fell in line behind him. And so went Washington's first two preseason games.
Did we have it all wrong? Was this — gasp — in fact an off year all along?
Come Thursday, August, 26, 2021, Rivera attempted to appease the scribes by addressing the unaddressed, ever so careful not to fall into a verbal trap or send the wrong signal — anything that could be misconstrued as a warning shot.
"If you've got a hard fought, true knock-down, drag-out battle, you've got to make that decision early," the head coach said.
"Like, Bill [Belichick's] gonna have to with Mac [Jones] and Cam [Newton] at some point," JP Finlay returned. "I don't think that's what's happening here."
"Yeah, at some point. Because you don't want it to divide," Rivera said. "I think the players know. And when the moment's appropriate, I'll let everybody know. I'll let everybody know what I think. But, you know, let's do it on our schedule, okay? I get it. I know you guys want to be able to say, 'I was the first one. I tweeted it out. I got it out.'"
The dogs of QB War doth still bark.
"Let me ask you a question," Brian Mitchell wondered aloud on Friday. "Why name it right now?"
"You don't need to name it," JP Finlay pleaded. "It's Ryan Fitzpatrick!"
"But even if you were going to name it, why name it right now? There's a preseason game left," Mitchell continued to ponder. "It's amazing how people just want to -- as Ron said it, he's gonna do stuff on his timeline and I'm with that. To hell with these people that want to write stories just so they can, 'I got the story already written. I want it to come out!' Who gives a damn? We're moving past it."
"There are people out there that give a damn," Finlay stated. "So I've been tweeting this out, I think it's a joke that you have a headline that says: 'Ron Rivera refuses to commit to Ryan Fitzpatrick as Washington's Week 1 starting quarterback.'"
"But the only way he's refusing to do something is because you expected it to happen to coincide with your article," Mitchell said. "Because I don't think anybody asked him, like, 'Ryan's the guy, right,' and he said, 'I refuse to say that.'"
"Ben Standig does a great job of covering the Washington Football Team for The Athletic," Finlay said. "So I tweeted out that CBS story. I said, 'This headline is so ridiculously inflammatory. It's Fitz's job.' Ben has been one of the reporters. He think it's important for Ron to name him."
"Okay. He invoked the competition talk," Mitchell acknowledged. "There's still one more damn preseason game. So you let the competition happen for the whole preseason, then after that write your article. Ben's a friend of mine, too, but I don't care if Ben thinks it's supposed to happen. Yes, eventually. But not right now. And then they have two weeks in between playing the next game. If you don't know who the starter is on the Monday of the actual week that they're going to be playing against the Los Angeles Chargers [in Week 1], I understand. Right now? It's all about who the hell wants to put the article out that they've already written. That's all that is."
"I don't even think he needs to name it. We just know who it is," Finlay offered. "Ron Rivera joined our program yesterday. We are appreciative of his time. And we asked him about this completely false quarterback controversy."
Again they listened. Again, they heard the same words. Again, sounds came from Rivera's mouth that sound like we're in Peace Time, not words of QB War.
"Three things. He said if it is that type of situation, like we saw with Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston. If," Mitchell said, confirming that words he'd just heard. "And I think every reporter, if you get your head out of the Click Land, you understand: Who's taking the snaps with the first team all the time? Who's started every game?"
"So right then, you know who the hell it is," Mitchell assured. "Then he came back and he said 'the players know.' The players know the guy that's been taking the first team snaps all the damn time, too. And then he came back and he said 'let's do it on our schedule.' What's wrong with those three things? But, you want to know, why? Because it's going to promote something you've written, you've said or whatever. Let's move past that."
"Now, I get, on some level, the journalistic integrity is, 'Okay, you said there's going to be a competition. Tell us who's won the competition,'" Finlay said. "Like, I can understand that."
Now understand this.
"Why is it that people don't want to use their minds sometimes?" Mitchell said. "Ron coming out and stating it means nothing. And, I know he hasn't refused to do anything. He just hasn't been talking about it. That's the difference."
The difference. Between QB War and QB Peace.
Alas, this is an off year.
