“To be honest, I’m more motivated now than ever. A bigger chip on my shoulder. The league done messed up.”
That’s what former Ohio State quarterback Dwayne Haskins said after the Redskins selected him with the 15th overall pick in last month’s draft, insinuating that Haskins expected to go a lot higher than that. And when you look at his one season as a collegiate starter, there’s legitimacy to that feeling. Like first overall pick Kyler Murray, Haskins threw 50 touchdown passes in 2018 despite the fact that he hadn’t been the offense’s main man before, and Haskins’ tape showed a preternatural ability to read defenses, decipher coverages and make NFL-level throws based on his diagnosis.
At the scouting combine, Haskins talked about his work with Ohio State’s coaches as a major factor in his development as a field-reader. Whether it was offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach/head coach Ryan Day, receivers coach Brian Hartline, offensive coordinator/tight ends coach Kevin Wilson or quality control coach Cory Dennis, Haskins had a battery of offensive intelligence at his disposal, and he took full advantage. Moreover, he did all this in a turbulent season in which head coach Urban Meyer was suspended and the remaining coaches had to perform different duties.
“After the game on Saturday, Sunday we meet as a team,” Haskins said. “After team work, after practice, I watch film with Cory Dennis. It could be up to an hour, two hours every Sunday. Mondays I come in. I meet with Coach Day. Coach Wilson. Coach Hartline and the rest of the offensive staff. Go over the game plan. After that I watch about two games on Monday. Tuesday, I watch first downs. Wednesdays, I watch third down and red zone. So, every day I’m watching an hour or two of film on top of schoolwork on top of practice and on top of meetings. So, throughout the week, it’s probably 10 hours of film just going on getting ready for one single game. Being able to see the looks multiple times, watching practice, watching our plays look up to difference coverages just helps me prepare for the game.”
This isn’t particularly unusual for a top-level college quarterback, but Haskins’ maturity at that position for a one-year starter shows up in the throws he makes to beat coverage, the ways in which he’ll look defenders off to help his receivers, and the ways in which he’ll use his plus-level arm to throw receivers open in some very tight windows. Were this all that the position required, it would have been easy to pound the table for Haskins as not only the first quarterback taken in this draft, but the first player overall.
Unfortunately, there’s more to the position than that, and there’s one area where Haskins really needs to figure things out before he’ll be ready to play in an NFL with waves of rotational pass rushers coming at him every week. Haskins is not a good quarterback under pressure, and that shows up on tape in all kinds of ways. Per Pro Football Focus, Haskins had a 90.4 passer rating with a clean pocket that dropped to 56.7 when pressured, and the primary reason for this is that he’s not yet able to adjust his body to make throws under pressure.
Quarterbacks who throw well on the run and off their ideal spots are able to move their shoulders to the target after they’re flushed out, reduce their deliveries in ways that don’t affect their accuracy, and throw from different platforms when necessary. Haskins looks better than any other quarterback in this class when the pocket’s full of air, but especially against the best defenses he faced in 2018, combining mobility and accuracy was a real problem. Under those conditions, Haskins was far more likely to take a sack than he was to make a play.
Redskins coach Jay Gruden has always preferred a quarterback who can roll out and reduce the field and make plays out of that in his version of the West Coast offense, but he didn’t seem too concerned about Haskins’ issues.
“I think he’s a big strong guy. He can maneuver in the pocket,” Gruden said at the press conference after Haskins was selected. “There’s a lot of quarterbacks that aren’t necessarily scramblers. You have to maneuver in the pocket to buy some time, and he can buy time with his size and strength. People bounce off of him. He’s a big strong kid and he has functional mobility. I’ve seen him get outside the pocket at Ohio State and make throws for touchdowns in the red zone and other areas of the field.”
There isn’t a lot of evidence of that, but there are examples of Haskins stepping up in the pocket to make excellent throws. There’s a difference between mobility and pocket movement, and Gruden does have a lot to build on with Haskins’ pocket movement.
Here, in Ohio State’s 28-23 Rose Bowl victory against Washington, Haskins does a nice job of eluding pressure, moving up in the pocket, resetting and nailing a deep throw to receiver Johnnie Dixon. This is where Haskins’ abilty to take in the entire field and move to avoid pressure shows up in a positive way.
And this throw against Michigan State, which was on target but dropped by Dixon, shows how Haskins can use pocket movement to give a sense of mobility. This isn’t rolling out of the pocket and nailing a receiver 40 yards downfield, but it once again shows how he can step up in a way that he’s comfortable and make a throw any NFL quarterback would be happy with.
But things get problematic for Haskins when he leaves the pocket and tries to reduce his delivery. Here, he hits Michigan linebacker Devin Bush in the back of the helmet as he’s trying to hit receiver Jaylen Harris. This brings up another issue: Haskins is more of a bailout thrower when flushed out of the pocket; he’s not a fully developed reader of the field on the run.
And here, against Washington, he’s hoping to make a big play happen on third-and-17, but he’s unable to pull the trigger on the deep crosser and he doesn’t want the open underneath stuff. This is more a victory for Washington’s defense than it is an indictment of Haskins, but it bears watching as a possible precursor to the kinds of defenses Haskins will face at the next level.
Once again against Washington, we see what happens when Haskins gets pressure right in his face — he reduces his delivery, throws up an air ball and is fortunate that cornerback Jordan Miller drops the interception.
This is what Gruden and the Redskins have to build on, though — what Haskins can do in the pocket. This touchdown to receiver Parris Campbell is what gets you excited about the player — he knows where the opening is post-snap, and he makes an excellent throw through his progressions.
It’s not that Haskins’ inability to create positive plays under pressure is a professional death sentence, but the quarterbacks who are able win under pressure have an inherent advantage he doesn’t. Like all good coaches, Gruden will have to work around this limitation at the same time he and his staff help Haskins through it.
Tom Brady has shredded defenses when under pressure because of his own incomparable acumen, and also because the Patriots have transitioned to a quick passing game over the last few seasons that allows Brady to get the ball out in a defined space of time. Jared Goff and Matt Ryan are able to win against pressure despite their limited movement skills (and in Goff’s case, his limited ability to play outside structure) because the Rams and Falcons are highly effective play-action teams. As PFF points out, Haskins was one of the NCAA’s best play-action quarterbacks in 2018, completing 81 of 122 passes for 1,351 yards, 17 touchdowns and only two interceptions. Nick Foles has thrived in RPO-heavy offenses in which first and second reads are quickly defined; a three-step passing game with open receivers is one of the best ways to mitigate a quarterback’s lack of mobility.
In the short term, all Haskins’ lack of consistency under pressure means is that he’ll need a highly defined offense — he’ll have to be schemed to success within an absolute structure. The extent to which he overcomes this flaw in the long term will define his potential as a player beyond scheme — and a quarterback at the top of the NFL list.
