Taking an assessment of his football team one quarter of the way into the 2020 season, Ron Rivera sees Kyle Allen as the quarterback who gives the Washington Football Team the best chance to win.
That was the driving force behind Rivera's decision to bench Dwayne Haskins, the head coach explained in great detail to reporters on Wednesday. Now Allen will guide Washington's offense against the Rams on Sunday, with Alex Smith – not Haskins – as his backup, as the Football Team looks to rebound from a 1-3 start.
"I think the biggest thing is looking at where we are, in terms of our schedule and the situation and circumstances," Rivera said. "This has been thought out by me for a while, and to me it goes back to the beginning of the schedule. We have four games coming up at the beginning that I was hoping to come out of it being 2-4, and then going into a stretch where we play four NFC games, three divisional games, and again, where we could make some hay.
"And unfortunately, we're 1-3. We've got three divisional games coming up, four conference games, and I just felt, based on the things that have gone on with Dwayne, based on his development and where he is, we're better off putting the ball in the hands of guys that know our system — a guy that's been in our system for three years, backed up by a guy that's been in the system before and is a little bit more of an accomplished quarterback."
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Rivera made clear his decision was less an indictment on Haskins than it was a result of the circumstances of, somehow, being in second place in a putrid NFC East. Although, Rivera did allow that Haskins is "behind in his development."
"This is not an indictment on Dwayne as much as it's an indictment on the situation and circumstances that we are in," Rivera said. "He did not have the benefit of OTAs and minicamp. He did not have the benefit of four preseason games to work through things. And because of that, he's behind in his development in the system."
"And again, it's an unfortunate situation," he said. "But as we go through the first four games, and look at 'em and break 'em down, I visit with the coaches, talk to the coaches, go through the games with the coaches and the things that happened, it's just one of those things that he needs more time.
"And we're also, though, in a situation with what has happened in our division, it's open, and so I want to take an opportunity to see what we can do."
Rivera went on to detail the conversation he had with Washington owner Dan Snyder prior to moving forward with his decision.
"I'm not telling anybody what I'm thinking, okay, because I don't want anybody to think that people are telling me what to do," he said. "I thought about this as we were going into the beginning of the year, and I looked at the schedule and I'm going, wow, our first eight games are very telling.
"Within our first eight games, we play everybody in our division and we play one team twice. I thought, wow. Shoot, if you can win those four... And then I looked at the beginning of the season and I thought, man, if we can come out 2-4... I thought, okay. Alright, we'll see what happens."
"So again, those are the things that I have to think about as the head coach, and those are the things that I have to map out, right, wrong or indifferent," he said. "But just so you know, that's what I'm doing."
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"Now, I did talk to Mr. Snyder," he continued. "I explained to him what I wanted to do, I explained to him why I wanted to do it, and he was very supportive. He said, 'Ron, it's your football team. If those are the decisions you're gonna make, you're gonna live with those decisions?'
"And I said, 'Yes sir, I am.'
"He said, 'Well then, I'm all supportive. I'm behind you 100 percent.'
"That's it. That was our conversation."
"Just so everybody knows, these are the things that I thought about," Rivera went on. "I went to our coordinator and I said, 'Look, what do you think? What's going on? What's happening?' He said, 'Coach, he's got a long way. It's tough. He's been learning, but you know what...' I said, 'Well, what do you think about going in...' and I explained it to Scott (Turner).
"And Scott thought that's not a bad idea. We're putting the ball in the hands of somebody that knows the system better, that's been through the system for three years. That's what we're doing. And we're trying to increase our chances to win, and we think this is a good opportunity for us to win."
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