Washington Football Team should start Kyle Allen the rest of the way

Kyle Allen should be under center for the Washington Football Team to close out the season.

In Week 16, the Washington Football Team took one of the most humiliating losses of the season – for any team. Just a few weeks ago they held a wild card spot. Now they are on a three-game losing streak following a 56-14 defeat (that featured quarterback Taylor Heinicke getting benched for Kyle Allen late in the contest) at the hands of their rival Dallas Cowboys.

In that game, we saw Heinicke go 7-for-22 for 121 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. That is before he was benched for Allen.

Allen then went 8-for-10 for 67 yards and a touchdown in his short time on the field. And now it’s time for him to be the full-time starting quarterback for the last two games this season.

This isn’t some “Kyle Allen is the future” article either. Heinicke has been horrendous lately. You saw the numbers from this week. In his previous start, Heinicke went 11-for-25 for 122 yards and a touchdown compared to one interception. And that one touchdown was an under-thrown “bomb” to Cam Sims for 43 yards. If it wasn’t for the receiver “mossing” Trevon Diggs, the numbers would’ve been a lot worse.

It wasn’t just those two starts either. Heinicke has thrown an interception in four straight games. His lack of arm strength has severely limited the offense.

There’s a lot to like about Heinicke. He plays extremely hard, has good legs, and sometimes shows off pretty solid accuracy (although sometimes that gets away from him too). There’s a lot of confidence, which is great but sometimes hurts him as well. The whole “he’s a gamer” expression works for Heinicke. But that only takes you so far.

Now, let’s not pretend like Allen has a cannon either. But Terry McLaurin is one of the better receivers in the entire NFL. He had zero catches against Dallas a few weeks ago. That’s despite absolutely torching his defender on multiple occasions. Heinicke just couldn’t get the ball to him. A lot of underthrows. And on the play McLaurin got hurt, you can actually see Heinicke wave telling him to go deep. The QB then proceeds to severely under throw him and it leads to a jump ball that ended with McLaurin getting a concussion.

This week, McLaurin had zero catches for zero yards in the three quarters Heinicke played. In the two drives that Allen was under center, the receiver picked up three receptions for 40 yards.

Washington’s playoff hopes are over. They are now 6-9 with just two games left on the schedule. Heinicke clearly isn’t the answer at quarterback. And Allen isn’t either.

But Washington needs to be evaluating talent. And they can’t do that on the offensive end if the quarterback can’t get the ball to anyone.

In Heinicke’s defense, the offensive line didn’t seem to be doing him any favors this week. He still missed plenty of throws though. And overall he had a very solid year. Incredible year even considering he was the backup to start the season and was thrust into action due to an injury. You could go even further than that when you look at where he was a year ago.

Right now though, he looks absolutely lost. And it’s not benefiting anyone to have him as your quarterback. John Bates is showing some potential. It would be nice to try and get Dyami Brown, Dax Milne, DeAndre Carter, and Cam Sims involved too. If your quarterback is 7-for-22 no one gets a chance to shine though.

McLaurin is the perfect example of why a change should be made. He’s elite. If you are just watching the box score for the last five weeks though, it looks like he’s a below-average wide receiver. That’s because that’s around the time Heinicke hit a wall. And if you can’t get the ball to your elite playmaker, things are going to get ugly.

There are probably a lot of fans that want Washington to lose these last two games. Out of the playoffs, you might as well get better draft positioning right? No player is thinking that way though, and neither are the coaches.

The coaches want to evaluate talent. And the players want a chance to prove themselves. It’s time to give Kyle Allen a chance to prove himself, and maybe help out some of the offensive weapons in the process.

And when the offseason comes around, let’s all hope that the Washington Football Team looks to the draft to find a franchise quarterback – because we can’t keep doing this every year.