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At this point in the offseason, Washington’s Week 1 quarterback may or may not currently be on its roster.
After releasing Alex Smith, the club has Taylor Heinicke and Kyle Allen in tow. Heinicke performed admirably in starting the team’s playoff game against Tampa Bay. Allen started four games before fracturing his ankle and missing the rest of the season.
But the Football Team attempted to trade for Matthew Stafford before the Lions agreed to trade him to the Rams, indicating the club isn’t content to stand pat at QB.
During his Wednesday press conference, head coach Ron Rivera said Washington has time to come up with a solution.
“We’re going through this process. Free agency starts next week. The draft is in 50 days, I understand. So we still have time, and we’re going to continue to explore all the options that are out there,” Rivera said. “I get it, you guys want answers, but we don’t have answers for you right now because we’re still working through the process. Again, we’ve got a lot of time with free agency next week and the draft in 50 days.”
Rivera noted the Football Team will go about its process in a way that makes sure the club has the best fit at QB. With the 19th overall pick, Washington isn’t in a prime position to land a top quarterback. But with several options available, one of the passers could fall that far.
“We have an opportunity to grow it the right way in all three phases,” Rivera said. “So if the ‘franchise guy’ isn’t out there, we’re going to go with guys who we believe give us a chance to win. And that’s really what you do. Do you want to be able to say this is our franchise quarterback? Well yeah, you would love to. But you don’t know that until the quarterback starts playing — or quarterbacks. And once that happens, then you’ll know. So we’ve just got to be able to continue to go through this, study the players, and get the one that we feel can become that player. And we’ll see what happens.”
John Madden used to say, “If you have two quarterbacks, then you have none,” so he might disagree with Rivera’s use of the plural there. But if Washington can find its franchise QB, then the team should be set up for success — particularly in the NFC East.
