Here’s a new one…
A second-year quarterback makes his 11th career start. At various points in the game he’s trailing 14-0 and 21-7. He completes 32 passes trying to get back into the game. The completions average 3.3 air yards. His receivers give him 207 yards after the catch. He contributes 107 yards through the air. His team is destroyed, 31-17. After the game in the dejected locker room, as his team drops to 1-3 on the season, he brags about recording his first 300-yard game in the loss.
The story ends with the quarterback getting benched and then cut.
Dwayne Haskins was not going to work in DC. Washington burned another opportunity to get better in 2019 when it let Dan Snyder influence the decision. How many years must he continue to influence the direction of the franchise and sabotage its ability to improve?
If Ron Rivera gets his way, it won’t be happening again any time soon. This is Rivera’s team.
Out of necessity due to injury, Washington was forced to turn back to Haskins to close out the season. Starting quarterback Alex Smith injured his calf against the 49ers in a Week 14 win to pull the Football Team to 6-7 on the season. As crazy as it sounds, they were frontrunners in the hunt for the NFC East crown. The Giants sat at 5-8 and in second place. The Eagles were 4-8-1 and the Cowboys were 4-9. With three weeks to go in the season, anyone could win this division.
Washington put the ball back into Haskins’s hands for a Week 15 game at home against the Seahawks. Offensive coordinator Scott Turner did everything he could to help Haskins succeed based on what he had witnessed earlier in the year.
If you ask Haskins to complete a pass within eight yards of the line of scrimmage, you have a chance. You ask him to push the ball more than eight yards downfield, you’re playing with fire.
Haskins started the first four games of the 2020 season. Examine his passing splits based on air yardage:
Up to 8 air yards: 89.5% catchable rate and 84.2% on-target rate
Beyond 8 air yards: 57.1% catchable rate and 42.9% on-target rate
Even if you exclude third downs from the calculus, Haskins couldn’t get the ball downfield with any accuracy (48.3% on-target rate).
Compare Haskins to other Washington starters on these passes beyond 8 air yards:
Haskins: 57.1% catchable rate and 42.9% on-target rate
Alex Smith: 75.0% catchable rate and 58.3% on-target rate
Kyle Allen: 68.2% catchable rate and 63.6 on-target rate
Taylor Heinicke: 79.3% catchable rate and 75.9% on-target rate
Dwayne Haskins wasn’t just the least accurate quarterback on the Football Team, he was the least accurate in the entire NFL. That doesn’t even begin to account for his actual results. Out of 50 qualifying quarterbacks, his EPA/att ranked last. His success rate ranked last. His YPA ranked last.
On 75 passes thrown beyond eight yards downfield, his average throw depth was 17.3 air yards and his average YPA was 5.5. No other quarterback, not even Colt McCoy on the Giants or Brandon Allen on the Bengals had a YPA of less than 7.5 on these throws. Haskins stood alone at 5.5.
Fast forward to Week 15, with the season in the balance. In the first half on early downs, Turner intelligently went 72% pass against a Seahawks team that ranked 10th against the run and 21st against the pass. It didn’t help that Washington was without Antonio Gibson and had to start J.D. McKissic at running back. But Haskins was lost. He averaged -0.46 EPA/att, 3.3 YPA, and a 22% success rate on 18 early down attempts. These passes averaged only 6.6 air yards. They were in his wheelhouse from a comfort perspective, but he wasn’t able to connect. Seattle quickly took the lead and was up 13-3 at halftime.
That day, Washington lost 20-15.
That night, Haskins hit the strip club.
He was photographed without a mask after the game in the club, violating the COVID safety guidelines for the second time of the year. Haskins apologized, admitting fault, and said he was sorry for “creating a distraction for my team during our playoff push.”
That made Week 16 even more vital, sitting at 6-8 on the season. It was already going to be a huge game against Rivera’s former team, the Panthers. This time, Washington was without Terry McLaurin but had Gibson back. The Panthers struggled against both the run and pass, ranking bottom-10 in both metrics. Considering how bad Haskins was the prior game, Turner again changed his approach to try and help his quarterback. Washington went 50/50 run/pass on early downs in the first half, going much more run-heavy. Part of the strategy worked perfectly. You might imagine what part that was:
12 runs: 0.28 EPA/att, 7.1 YPC, 75% success
12 passes: -1.39 EPA/att, 1.7 YPA, 17% success
Requiring less of Haskins and giving him a run game didn’t help him. Haskins was terrible once again, even worse than the prior game. Washington fell behind 20-0 and trailed 20-3 at halftime. Washington kept with Haskins in the third quarter. They kept with him to start the fourth quarter. Haskins had a fourth-and-2 at the Panthers’ 36-yard line on his first drive of the fourth quarter, down 20-6. Haskins took a sack on the fourth down. Rivera benched him.
Washington inserted Taylor Heinicke. These two quarterbacks finished with the following splits on early downs:
Haskins: -0.85 EPA/att, 2.8 YPA, 24% success (21 att)
Heinicke: 0.07 EPA/att, 8.1 YPA, 63% success (16 att)
Washington lost 20-13. Haskins was cut the next day.
Although Washington had about league-average health from the quarterback position, the rotation between them was crazy:
Week 1: Dwayne Haskins
Week 2: Haskins
Week 3: Haskins
Week 4: Haskins
Week 5: Kyle Allen & Alex Smith
Week 6: Allen
Week 7: Allen
Week 9: Allen & Smith
Week 10: Smith
Week 11: Smith
Week 12: Smith
Week 13: Smith
Week 14: Smith & Haskins
Week 15: Haskins
Week 16: Haskins & Taylor Heinicke
Week 17: Smith
Week 18: Heinicke
It goes without saying that a new offensive coordinator installing a new offensive system during a pandemic, without standard in-person work nor a preseason, and then dealing with such upheaval at the quarterback position due either to injury or performance was a tough job.
How could you possibly get this number of quarterbacks ready to play during a season? How do you change up both big and little things to tailor the game plans and play calls to mesh with where the quarterbacks are at their best. Each was different.
Their primary starter had 17 surgeries to repair a broken fibula and tibia in 2018 and the multiple infections that nearly caused the amputation of his leg, and it was unclear if he would ever play again. Due to bad play from Haskins and injury to Allen, Smith was thrust into the starter’s role.
But that alone was an adventure for the offense. Do you call more handoffs to protect your quarterback? Do you call more early down passes to try and avoid third downs? What do you do in obvious passing situations, because he clearly can’t move very well in the pocket?
The first two games for Smith when he took over were after the bye in Week 9 and 10. Washington primarily used 11 personnel. Examine the drop types for Smith on early downs:
Shotgun 0/1 step drops: 79% success, 0.14 EPA/att, 10.2 YPA, 14% pressure rate (14 drops)
3-step drop: 53% success, 0.08 EPA/att, 9.6 YPA, 20% pressure rate (15 drops)
5-step drop: 61% success, 0.13 EPA/att, 8.5 YPA, 40% pressure rate (23 drops)
7-step drop: 43% success, -0.23 EPA/att, 3.1 YPA, 43% pressure rate (8 drops)
The deeper the drop, the more pressure got to Smith. In the case of 7-step drops, the efficiency was terrible. In the case of 5-step drops, the gain in efficiency wasn’t worth the added pressure.
Washington lost both of those first two Smith starts.
So Turner did a few things to help Smith and the offense. Over the next two weeks, Smith had a total of ONE drop that was longer than three-steps on early downs.
Weeks 9-10: 31 drops of 5-step or 7-step
Weeks 11-12: 1 drop of 5-step or 7-step
Turner also increased the early down pass rate in the first three quarters slightly, up to 72%.
Smith became Turner’s point guard. Figure out where to go with the ball and get rid of it. Distribute it quickly.
Against the undefeated Steelers in Week 13, Smith had 32 early down pass attempts, 29 of which were standard drops of between 0 and 7-steps. 24 of the 29 were 0/1 or 3-step drops. Only five were 5-step or 7-step drops. Washington couldn’t run the ball at all (2.1 YPC) after Gibson was injured, but they were able to navigate their way to a win.
When you combine how Turner adapted his offense to aid Alex Smith and, as discussed earlier, Dwayne Haskins, it’s clear that Turner is capable of playing to his quarterback’s strengths. That bodes well for the future and for the incorporation of Ryan Fitzpatrick into this offense.
Under Turner, Washington’s early down, first half pass rate ranked sixth, their pre-snap motion usage ranked sixth, and their play-action usage ranked ninth.
Compare those three metrics with Jay Gruden’s final year in DC (2019):
2019 early down pass rate: 29th
2020 early down pass rate: sixth
2019 play-action usage rate: 23rd
2020 play-action usage rate: ninth
2019 pre-snap motion usage rate: eighth
2020 pre-snap motion usage rate: sixth
In his final season, Jay Gruden’s first down pass rate was only 42%. Turner increased it to 56%.
As we know, motion improves efficiency and it should benefit Washington’s new quarterback, Ryan Fitzpatrick.
Miami’s offensive coordinator, Chan Gailey, used below-average rates of motion. In 2020, the Dolphins ranked 20th in play-action usage and 19th in pre-snap motion usage. In Washington, Fitzpatrick will likely use top-10 rates of both.
Examine Fitzpatrick’s splits last year on early downs in the first three quarters:
With play-action: 0.36 EPA/att, 8.8 YPA, 70% success
Without play action: 0.23 EPA/att, 9.1 YPA, 62% success
With pre-snap motion: 0.29 EPA/att, 9.0 YPA, 69% success
Without pre-snap motion: 0.25 EPA/att, 9.0 YPA, 61% success
There are a lot of good things to take from Washington’s 2020 season when you zoom out and take it in context.
For starters, they won the NFC East and made the playoffs. It doesn’t matter how bad the division is, winning a division is always something to be proud of. They did so with a new coaching staff in the pandemic juggling four different quarterbacks. That’s unlikely to happen in 2021, so that’s a positive.
Now let’s do a comparison between two different seasons:
Season A: +1 in turnover margin, 2-0 in games decided by a FG, 3-3 in one-score games
Season B: -4 in turnover margin, 0-3 in games decided by a FG, 3-5 in one-score games
If I showed you those two seasons, and told you that one of them was Washington’s 2019 season when they won three games and one of them was Washington’s 2020 season when they won seven games…which one was the 2020, 7-win season? You’d probably guess season A. So would I. And we’d both be wrong.
The 2020 Football Team won the NFC East despite going 0-3 in games decided by a field goal and being -4 in turnover margin on the season. There’s room for positive regression and improvement there — another good indicator for the future in Washington.
But if we’re talking regression, we must discuss the Football Team’s incredible 2020 defense. It went from a unit that literally ranked 24th in total defense, 24th in pass defense, and 24th in run defense during 2019 to a unit that ranked second in two of those three metrics. The turnaround under Rivera and Jack Del Rio was impressive, to say the least.
But there are a few red flags. First, the defense made massive turnarounds in two metrics that tend to be difficult to maintain for multiple years on end: red zone defense (second) and third down defense (seventh). Those are unstable year-to-year metrics that had a significant impact on opponent scoring during the 2020 season. If Washington regresses at all in either, opponents inevitably will score more in 2021, there is no way around it.
Second, defense tends to be a product of the offenses they play. Washington played the NFL’s fifth-easiest schedule of passing offenses last year and ninth-easiest schedule of overall offenses. Even a mediocre defense can look good against that light of a schedule. I know this won’t make Washington fans happy, but realistically consider the seven wins from 2020. They came against these quarterbacks playing for these teams:
Week 1 – Carson Wentz, 4-11-1 Eagles
Week 7 – Andy Dalton + Ben DiNucci, 6-10 Cowboys
Week 11 – Joe Burrow + Ryan Finley, 4-11-1 Bengals
Week 12 – Andy Dalton, 6-10 Cowboys
Week 13 – Ben Roethlisberger, 12-4 Steelers
Week 14 – Nick Mullens, 6-10 49ers
Week 17 – Jalen Hurts + Nate Sudfeld, 4-11-1 Eagles
Only two of those quarterbacks were the planned Week 1 starters for those teams and played the full game (Carson Wentz and Ben Roethlisberger). One of those two was benched midseason due to how poorly he played. Only one of those teams posted a winning record on the season and that team was blown out in the playoffs.
Washington made moves I liked on the defensive side of the ball this offseason, namely adding William Jackson III to help anchor what will be one of the most expensive secondaries in the NFL this year. But things will get much tougher for this unit in 2021, as I project them to make a jump from the 28th ranked schedule of passing offenses in 2020 to the 11th ranked schedule in 2021.
On the other side of the ball, my projections for the schedule Washington would face were dead on. At this time last year, here were my projections on the strength of schedule their offense would face compared to what they actually faced by the end of the year:
Overall strength of defenses: predicted last July = 21st … actual by end of year = 21st
Passing defenses: predicted last July = 27th … actual by end of year = 28th
Rushing defenses: predicted last July = ninth … actual by end of year = ninth
I was dead on. This year, I predict Washington will face only a slight jump, to 20th overall, with a jump to 24th in pass defenses and a drop to 23rd in run defenses. It may get easier to run the ball, but still should be easier than average when passing.
Although Fitzpatrick is viewed as a journeyman, and rightfully so (I loved his line that “every game is a revenge game because I’ve played on so many teams”), examine the quarterbacks that Turner worked with in Carolina in 2019: two starts from Cam Newton, replaced by 12 starts from Kyle Allen, replaced by two starts form Will Grier. And we already know the four quarterbacks he worked with last year.
If Fitzpatrick can simply stay healthy, Turner will have a huge upgrade at the quarterback position and should feel even more willing to pass the ball at a high rate. With the team adding Curtis Samuel in free agency, using Gibson more in the passing game than he was used in 2020, and adding Dyami Brown on the outside, this offense may have enough upside to improve to near league-average levels. If they’re able to do that, coupled with a defense that can remain top-10 despite slight regression, you could be looking at back-to-back division championships.
Stay tuned over the next eight weeks as we preview all 32 teams with daily articles and videos right here at the preview hub. For complete team chapters featuring dozens of visualizations and 462 pages, pick up a copy of Warren Sharp’s new ‘2021 Football Preview’ book.
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