Haskins Halftime Speech Means More Because He Backed It Up

Washington Football Team quarterback Dwayne Haskins has been around long enough to know he’s tired of playing “little brother” to the other teams in the NFC East.

As a rookie last season, Haskins made two starts against the NFC East. He came out on the losing end in both contests, despite playing his best game as a rookie against Philadelphia late in the season.

On Sunday, Haskins and his Washington teammates entered the locker room down 17-7 to the Eagles at FedEx Field.

With head coach Ron Rivera receiving a precautionary IV treatment due to his cancer diagnosis at halftime, the second-year passer took the lead in the locker room.

"Pretty much the moral of the speech was, 'We're home. We're the home team. They're the visitors. This is our house," Haskins said.

Haskins mentioned to his teammates how Philly went into halftime trailing one year ago in the season opener.

It was apparent; his teammates took notice.

After a slow start that saw Haskins go just 1 of 6 in the first quarter, he looked like a completely different quarterback in the second half. Haskins completed 10 of 15 attempts in the second half for 101 yards.

Sure, those numbers won’t blow you away, but the young passer was playing a tough front seven that held Washington’s running game to just 2.2 yards per attempt. If Washington was going to win this game, it would be up to Haskins to take advantage of the chaos created by his team’s defense.

Several times in the second half, Haskins stood tall in the pocket and made big-time throws. He connected with Terry McLaurin on two critical second-half completions to keep drives alive. Another big-time throw came to Steven Sims to give Washington a first and goal to set up another score.

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Washington wasn’t expecting Haskins to lead the NFL in passing in 2020. Rivera wanted to see growth each week and see how Haskins managed critical in-game situations.

Through one week, he certainly passed those tests.

Haskins is a confident quarterback. And that is a good thing. He believes he is good. That is critical. How many young quarterbacks have failed because they didn’t believe in themselves?

That’s not Haskins.

Much like Chase Young, Haskins is ready to turn the tide on how the rest of the NFC East views Washington.

"We shouldn't be little bro to them"

@WashingtonNFL QB Dwayne Haskins (@dh_simba7) speech at halftime was inspired from last year's loss to the Eagles and his team rallied behind his words.....

For more: https://t.co/NfZRq6cTYd @wusa9 @WUSA9sports #WashingtonFootball pic.twitter.com/h1DG1KmYNe
— Darren M. Haynes (@DarrenMHaynes) September 13, 2020

Change is in the air in Washington, and, for once, there is hope that this beleaguered franchise can finally turn the corner thanks in part to a couple of young, franchise cornerstones in Haskins and Young.

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Bryan Manning writes about the Washington Football Team for 'Washington Football' and contributed to All Hokies on SI.com as well. He has covered the NFL, MLB, NBA, college football and college basketball for almost 10 years for various outlets such as Bleacher Report, SB Nation, FanSided, USA Today SMG, and others. For his day job, Bryan works in engineering for a major communications company.