For Washington, it was time to admit their mistake with Dwayne Haskins

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With only one week left in the regular season, it would have been easy for Washington to carry quarterback Dwayne Haskins into the offseason, hope for a trade market to develop, and make a decision about his future later. Washington opted instead to admit a mistake and move on, now.

The decision has prompted widespread criticism of the decision to draft Haskins in the first place. However, Haskins widely was regarded as a first-round prospect. If Washington hadn’t taken him at No. 15, someone else would have selected him before the end of the round, even if it meant trading up from round two to get Haskins and the five-year maximum contract that goes along with a first-round pick.

It’s easier to chide Washington for not waiting a couple of months, especially in light of the possibility that Urban Meyer, who recruited Haskins to Ohio State and coached him there, will take one of the vacant NFL jobs. Washington could have shopped Haskins to Meyer. Even a late-round pick would have been more than nothing, especially since a trade would have wiped Haskins’ remaining $4.2 million in salary off the books without any type of a legal fight.

Without knowing everything that happened to precipitate coach Ron Rivera’s abrupt decision to cut Haskins (and, surely, something happened on Sunday night or Monday morning), it’s fair to defer to Rivera’s judgment. From the COVID-19 breach after the Week 15 loss to not playing very well in the Week 16 loss to the attempt to skip out on the mandatory media obligations after the game to whatever else we may not know about, Rivera (hardly a coach with a short fuse) had had enough. And Rivera was able to convince Haskins’ in-house champion — owner Daniel Snyder — that enough was enough.

It was a bad situation for everyone involved. Washington opted to admit its mistake in lieu of compounding it. Quite possibly, Rivera thought that he needed to send a clear message to the locker room, too, if other players had become exasperated with Haskins.

This doesn’t mean Haskins’ career is over. He’s only 23. He’ll get another chance, somewhere. And the wake-up call he got from getting cut could be exactly the spark his career needs.

But it’s up to him to show that his multiple apologies aren’t simply hollow words, and that he’s capable for being smarter, becoming more mature, and not behaving with the sense of entitlement that comes from a four-year guaranteed contract.

In 2011, NFL wanted to dramatically reduce the money given to first-round rookies for precisely that reason. Certain players became untouchable due to their contracts, and thus unreachable by their coaches and teammates. The decision to cut Haskins after only two of four seasons shows that the contract no longer will save a player who fails and/or refuses to do what he’s supposed to do.

The next question becomes when and where he’ll get a chance to do what he needs to do, in order to turn his young career around.