It would seem that the emergence of McLaurin is surprising and pleasing to people including the team officials specifically because such high performing, no nonsense rookies have been so hard for this team to find.
Teams like Pittsburgh and NE regularly have rookies and free agents that come in and replace veterans who leave in free agency or retire, etc.
Ryan Anderson, Geron Christian, and other selected picks seem to come along very slowly, either because they are not a good fit for where they are playing OR as I am suspecting more and more the team is selecting NFL prospects but simply OVERDRAFTING THEM.
When you draft a player too early you set unreasonable expectations.
I remember Christian was rated a
#5 or
#6 pick before the draft. We took him in Round 3.
He has physical upside but was very raw and needed time. Usually second and third round picks are closer to playing than that.
In re Haskins, I think we may have a similar situation.
Haskins has a plus arm and accuracy down the field but his college coaches had him in a sandlot system without complexity.
He only started 14 games but it really didn't matter if he had started 30 in that system.
He wasn't NFL ready.
While I didn't trust Gruden the fact Callahan also puts Haskins in the ‘future' rather than ‘present' category to me points up that Dwayne was in all likelihood overdrafted.
Dwayne being drafted at
#32 by New England and sitting behind Brady would have elicited no pressure to see him in 2019.
But when a team finishing in last place and starting 0-5 fails to trot a high pick out on the field early the pressure builds.
In truth, Haskins given the college system at OSU and the need for growth and learning SHOULD have have been a late first round or early second round pick.
Snyder jumped the gun on the pick not because Haskins can't play but because he wouldn't be a candidate to start right away and at
#15 that's the expectation.
The Redskins may be in a position now where they need to bring Dwayne along as if he were a second rounder sitting behind a starter although one significantly less accomplished than Brady.
Haskins should get on the field to start some games at the end of the season but should not be put out there now and left to the wolves.
It would be a shame to ruin a player that can still be a success story here because everyone is impatient to win.
We have waited 25 years, we can wait one more.
Ideally, the new HC comes in and confirms Callahan's timeline.
Perhaps Alex Smith comes back in 2020 and we can have Haskins work with a legitimate NFL starter rather than journeymen like McCoy.
O'Connell would be the key here. His future here is tied to Haskins development. There is nothing the team can do with McCoy and Keenum, at 32 and 31 these guys are who they are.
Working over the next 6 or 7 weeks plus perhaps we can bridge some of the experience gap Haskins suffered through when Gruden left him along the side of the road over the summer.
It's not unreasonable to think game action for a portion of 2019 and intensive offseason work with a new staff wouldn't have Haskins ready to take the baton sometime in the middle or latter portion of 2020 without looking back.
If that's not something people are ready to swallow they need to look upward toward Castle Dracula....I mean Castle Snyder for creating the current dilemma.