Washington Redskins: Grading Dwayne Haskins’ rookie season

Washington Redskins rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins had his ups-and-downs but what overall grade did he earn in his first NFL season?

With the 15th overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, the Washington Redskins were in a weird spot. The reason it was weird is that they needed a quarterback, but so did quite a few teams that were ahead of them.

To no one’s surprise, the Arizona Cardinals took Kyler Murray at No. 1. The surprise came with the sixth pick and the New York Giants as they took quarterback Daniel Jones a lot earlier than many thought he would go. This opened up the door a little bit for Washington on the Dwayne Haskins front. It kept creeping open just slightly more with each pick. Before you knew it, the Redskins were up and Haskins was still on the board.

Washington did indeed take him, and suddenly it looked like they might actually have their franchise quarterback they’ve been so desperate for. How did he do in year one though? Let’s go through the season and grade him out.

Just a quick overview of the rules here. First of all, there is more than just the box score. Stats are a big part of the game, but they are not everything. Second, some factors weigh a lot more when going into the grading. Finally, projections go into the grade as well. If a player flashed his potential well, it could give the final grade a boost.

Now Haskins is young, young and inexperienced. He had only started one year in college at Ohio State University. Due to that, he was not the immediate starter for the Redskins. However, just a few games into the season, the rookie made his first appearance. It was a relief appearance against the New York Giants in Week 4 and it did not go well.

His next appearance was also a relief spot, this time against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 8. After that, he was the full-blown starter.

The first look at Dwayne Haskins’s stats will make it seem like he wasn’t all that great. He completed 58.6 percent of his passes for 1,365 yards and seven touchdowns to go along with seven interceptions.

The numbers are drastically different when you take out those two relief appearances though. Suddenly, Haskins has much better numbers. The completion percentage goes up slightly, to 59.1 percent in his starts. He also had seven touchdown passes compared to just three interceptions as a starter. Even better, Haskins was showing major signs of improvement towards the end of the season.

In a Week 15 game against the Philadelphia Eagles, he set a ton of career-highs. That included 261 passing yards and two touchdowns. He also didn’t throw an interception in that game. Perhaps the most impressive part, however, was that he was dealing with an injury throughout. Despite that, Haskins stayed in and put on a show.

The next week was primed to be even better. In the first half against the Giants, Haskins went 12-for-15 for 133 yards and two touchdowns (no interceptions). On the first play of the second half, however, he was sacked and suffered an injury. That’s the last we would see of the quarterback on the season. He sat out the rest of the game, and the following week as well.

This is purely speculation, but I truly believe if the Redskins were playing for anything, Haskins would have been in. He showed a ton of toughness in Week 15 and clearly wanted to play at the end of the year.

That’s something I’m a big fan of. He’s a gamer. A lot of fans don’t like it and think the players are being selfish. They will say he should want what’s best for the team and realize he’s not 100 percent healthy and someone else could play better.

Sure, a true competitor and teammate can concede that someone else could help the team more. However, these types of players also have a hard time believing anyone else can play how they play. Can you blame someone for believing in themselves?

Meanwhile, the progression can’t go unnoticed. Haskins looked extremely raw in his first two appearances. He was coming into games cold with no real time spent working with the starters though. Those outings skewed his numbers.

Once Haskins became the starter, things got a lot better. Not only that but he was looking better each week. Suddenly he was getting rid of the ball a little bit quicker, hitting his receivers on target more often and building a rapport with some.

Speaking of building a rapport, it should also be noted that Haskins was working with a third-string tight end and a makeshift offensive line. He also had four rookie wide receivers as his targets.

Yes, Terry McLaurin, Kelvin Harmon and Steven Sims Jr. all have tons of promise and should become a great trio. However, let’s not pretend like having three rookies as your top weapons is going to help a rookie quarterback.

Something else that needs to be talked more about is his escapability. When entering the draft, there was a lot of talk saying Haskins is immobile. Don’t get me wrong, Haskins is far from fast and even he will admit that. However, he moves well in the pocket and can run when he needs to. He also escaped pressure expertly multiple times.

All in all, Dwayne Haskins looked like a young, raw rookie who didn’t really even play much in college. He also looked like the best quarterback prospect in the draft at times though. If fans are patient, it will pay off with Haskins.

His rookie season had ups and downs. The positives really started to outweigh the negatives by the end of the year though. Due to that marked improvement, it’s hard not to give him a solid grade for year one with a “B”.