WFT QB Haskins Is A Captain And At Practice

ASHBURN, Va. - In breaking news, Dwayne Haskins is at practice today. In breaking opinion, he should not be.

Ron Rivera said after the practice session that Haskins would be the starter if Alex Smith, who was limited, cannot play.

In old news, the young QB was, to begin the season, made a team captain. He shouldn't have been then and he shouldn't be now. the Washington Football Team should strip Haskins of his captaincy.

Just after this column was published, Rivera and the WFT announced that indeed Haskins has been stripped of that title as captain.

Even if it wasn't 2020, the starting quarterback of an NFL team coming off of a tightly-contested loss by a playoff-hopeful team should observe the "optics,'' at the very least, and should not be at a strip club that night.

Dwayne Haskins has had his helmet on the entire time to start practice and appears to have a covering on his face mask. That’s new. pic.twitter.com/6cdsGfNYRv
— JP Finlay (@JPFinlayNBCS) December 23, 2020

Haskins knows this now. He's apologized. The team says it has handled the situation internally, which probably includes a fine and a tongue-lashing from head coach Ron Rivera.

READ MORE: Thanks, Dan. Thanks, Dwayne.

They could suspend him up to four games for not wearing his tracking device, known as a PPE device, on Sunday night to a restaurant and then a strip club. That's considered "high risk COVID-19 conduct" by the NFL.

Rivera and the organization will not cut him. They can't trade him (for now). They can bench and deactivate him. That - again, in our new opinion - what they absolutely should do.

Or they could go beyond that and strip his captaincy. Perhaps that's "only symbolic,'' but leadership and the word 'captain' means something to today's professional athletes. (Ask Ask Terry McLaurin what the honor meant when he replaced Landon Collins a few weeks back.) And if WFT did that while at the same time telling Haskins to take leave of today's workout at Washington HQ?

That would have been more than symbolic.

As we've said a few times in this space, Haskins was only selected as a captain to begin the year because he plays the quarterback position and the organization was trying to force-feed him as a leader after a summer of good work.

Can we all agree that the force-feed wasn't swallowed?

McLaurin or Morgan Moses should have been selected then over Haskins. But even if one argues that Haskins was the right choice then ... he's a horrible choice now. He's hurting the club before a football game that means everything for the Washington Football Team.

Captains can make mistakes. Derek Jeter was the captain of the New York Yankees for the bulk of his brilliant career. He certainly "had his fun,'' but he lead. Mark Messier was the captain of the New York Rangers as they were trying to end a 54-year drought back in the mid-90's. All he did was guarantee a win and deliver a hat trick. Alex Ovechkin, the captain of the Capitals, finally delivered a Stanley Cup.

Haskins the QB? He doesn't deserve to play because I believe, now, in addition to having too little trust from the coaching staff, he's lost support in the locker room as well.

And Haskins the "captain''? He doesn't deserve to lead, because ... he can't.