Casserly doesn’t think Washington should trade Haskins originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Dwayne Haskins went from Washington’s starting quarterback to finding himself in trade rumors in under a week. So goes life in the NFL.
Washington appears to have moved on from Haskins as the starter in the short term, but is it already time to end the marriage with the former first round pick?
Some argue yes, because his value won’t be much higher if he doesn’t start another game for this team. Some, like former Washington general manager Charley Casserly, see this team’s quarterback situation as proof that they shouldn’t get rid of anybody quite yet.
“If I’m Washington, I’m not trading [Haskins],” Casserly said on The Sports Junkies Tuesday. “Do I have my answer [at quarterback]? No. Kyle Allen played very well Sunday, but did the ball go down field? No. When he played last year, two things happened. He started fast, but I think as defenses figured him out, the ball wasn’t going down field. It was also by design because I don’t know of a ball that he attempted down field, but that’s something that you’ve got to watch with him as we go forward. His decision making totally fell apart the longer he played last year.”
Before Allen was knocked out of the game on Sunday, he had completed 9-of-13 passes for 74 yards and ran it in for the team’s only touchdown of the day. He didn’t look great, but neither did anyone else on Washington that day.
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The jury is still out on whether Allen can recapture some of the magic he found last year with Carolina, starting 4-0 in place of the injured Cam Newton. If he can’t, you have to think Rivera will turn to Alex Smith, who made his miraculous return to the field in Week 5, two years after a career-threatening injury.
As great a story as Smith is, he still needs to show more for Casserly to feel better about off-loading a player like Haskins for relatively nothing.
“Alex Smith is a great story, he’s a movie, but he has to play well, doesn’t he?” he said. “Can we say he’s [Washington’s] quarterback going forward? We’ve got to see that don’t we?”
Washington still has two games before the NFL trade deadline on October 29, and both games come against bad defenses (Giants, Cowboys). If they can get solid production out of the quarterback position, maybe it’ll be easier to move Haskins.
But if the offense continues to struggle? It’d be hard to sell trading a player with Haskins’ potential when neither player above him on the depth chart can get the job done either. If your goal is to compete for the division, you can’t trade players for draft picks midseason unless you’re sure you can do better.
