Dwayne Haskins remains absent from Washington with illness

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Washington quarterback Dwayne Haskins remains away from the team with an illness. Although it’s not COVID-19, the situation has to be concerning to the team.

Demoted last week from starter to No. 3, Haskins ended up at home on Sunday, due to the illness. Three days later, on the first day of practice in advance of a Week Six game against the 0-5 Giants, Haskins didn’t practice.

It’s not COVID-19; if it were, he’d be on the reserve list. Whatever it is, the fact that he still has it three days later to the point that he couldn’t show up for work is concerning.

Also concerning is the possibility, frankly, that he has a case of the blue flu.

It would be hard to blame Haskins for reacting to his demotion by deciding to stay away from the team, citing an illness that is embellished, exaggerated, or fabricated. (At 23, that’s quite possibly what I and you and many others would have done.)

Haskins surely feels that he’s been slapped in the face, disrespected by his employer. Surely, he has no desire to show his face in a place where he feels unwanted and unappreciated.

The question becomes whether he’ll continue to be a member of the team. As one league source recently put it, the team’s post-demotion effort to say Haskins still has a future in this league comes from a desire to trade him. While that may not happen at the 2020 trade deadline, Haskins becomes a potential option for another team in 2021.

For that reason, his best play would be to go along and get along and hope that eventually he gets away from a place where he no longer fits, in the hopes of landing with a team that wants him.

It’s way too early to know whether he does or doesn’t have what it takes to be a franchise quarterback in the NFL. To date, he hasn’t had a full and fair chance to show what he can do. For now, it’s not clear whether he’ll get it in Washington or anywhere else.