Just about every time the Washington football team parts ways with an employee, the move occurs after a pattern of smears or innuendo that seems designed to tip everyone off that it’s coming. So it is now with head coach Jay Gruden. The Skins are going to shove Gruden into a volcano; at this point, it’s less a matter of if than when. And it’s taken all of five weeks for the pattern of smears or innuendo to include rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins.
Here’s Les Carpenter of the Washington Post:
Before Haskins was selected, ESPN reported that Washington’s coaching staff preferred a more experienced college player—like Duke’s Daniel Jones, who was selected sixth overall by the New York Giants—only to be overruled by owner Daniel Snyder.
A person with knowledge of Gruden’s thinking has confirmed that the head coach did not want Haskins, and while Haskins has publicly downplayed any suggestion that he wasn’t Gruden’s choice, a person close to the rookie quarterback said that Haskins has sensed that to be the case.
Whether this is the Skins besmirching Gruden or Gruden firing off a pre-emptive shot isn’t the point. Why else would this bit of news about the quarterback the Skins selected 15th overall need to get out now, other than as a telltale sign of the way the Skins conduct business? In related news, Gruden announced this afternoon that Colt McCoy, rather than Haskins, will start Sunday’s home appearance before the firing squad against the Patriots. As for whether the backup will be Haskins or Case Keenum ...
Poor Dwayne Haskins. He may or may not turn out to be shitty, but it’s not his fault a parking lot attendant can’t retire from Landover without anonymous sources telling the Post that they were a secret cannibal or whatever.