BREAKING: QB Kyle Allen Moves To IR

ASHBURN, Va. - The Washington Football Team finally made an expected move at quarterback and no, it's not Dwayne Haskins moving up or down or sideways. It's the real starting quarterback - Kyle Allen - finally being put on the injured reserve list.

He'll have to miss at least the next three games (Cincinnati, Dallas, Pittsburgh) and was originally expected to miss the rest of the season.

The prognosis may have changed after the initial report from NFL Network early last week following the injury and perhaps that's why Washington decided to keep him off of injured reserve initially.

Coach Ron Rivera said a week ago that the report was premature.

Otherwise, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense (on the surface) to have kept him off of the three-game minimum list and delay the timeline, while not opening potentially a roster spot.

Alex Smith started the 30-27 loss at Detroit on Sunday and he will remain the first-team QB.

Steven Montez is on the practice squad and would have been inactive Sunday in Detroit, so it's quite possible that the WFT just didn't want to promote Montez to the 53 unnecessarily.

The only corresponding roster move announced by the team in conjunction with the Allen announcement was that defensive end Jalen Jelks was signed to the practice squad.

Some quick thoughts on the way the WFT has used the opportunity of roster movement ...

As we've explained many times in this space, Washington seems very hesitant to use the three-game reserve list for whatever reasons they have.
The WFT has had several interesting issues with this very subject in the first nine games.
Steven Sims Jr., Greg Stroman, Geron Christian, Dontrelle Inman, Saahdiq Charles (early in season) and Bryce Love all come to mind immediately when it comes to balancing 53-man roster spots and injuries.
In certain cases - Brandon Scherff, Antonio Gandy-Golden and Charles (third injury) - those players have quickly gone on the injured reserve list.
Moving forward into December (at least), it appears to be that Alex Smith and Haskins will be in uniform until at least a road game in San Francisco in mid-December.
And we will monitor Allen's situation from there.