Dwayne Haskins is one of the biggest quarterback busts of the past decade, but no one wants to fall on the sword for drafting him.
Few people working in the Redskins front office that drafted Haskins with the 15th overall pick in the 2019 draft is still with the team — the same goes for the coaching staff. There’s a new regime in place, with former president Bruce Allen finally having been relieved of his duties, after having been an executive with the team since 2010, up until the #FireBruceAllen hashtag finally led to that happening just over a year ago.
Ironically, Dan Snyder remains in the same position, as owner, and it’s been rumored that he pushed for the team to draft Haskins. Even former head coach Jay Gruden, who is now the Jaguars offensive coordinator, recently intimated as much.
“Well, first and foremost, he is the owner,” Gruden said, via The Athletic. “So if he wants to come off his yacht, or if he wants to come off his tennis court, wherever he’s at and make a pick, he has that right. (Dan) has the ultimate say, and that’s not going to change until he decides he wants to change.”
And then he hedged the team’s bet to draft Haskins, attempting to explain the pick.
“We knew we needed a quarterback, though. I mean, so at the end of the day, it’s not like Dwayne was not a good prospect. He’s a young football player with a lot of talent. So it’s not the end of the world we took Dwayne. We just didn’t think we had to take him that high. It’s just what we thought … if we lost Dwayne that there were a couple of other ones later we might be able to get to come in and maybe compete with Case. Plus there was still hope in the back of our minds that Alex would come back.”
Given that he made all these comments for the same article, it’s sure looking like Gruden doesn’t want to be on the hook for the pick, and that he’s insinuating that Snyder was the driving force behind it.
