Still, the Washington organization itself shares the blame for Haskins’ downfall. Haskins was placed in circumstances that would hinder anyone’s success, and he was operating under a particularly bright spotlight because he was summoned by his hometown team. Washington has embraced and spit on players before – check out Robert Griffin III – and it was hard not to notice the smell of the team’s resentment towards Haskins last year and Rivera’s reluctance to play his lot with Haskins this season. Haskins did not create the difficult culture in Washington, where alliances between decision-makers were created and broken up with a frequency that required a flow chart, but he is just the latest example of how local Byzantine politics could undermine individuals and torment the football product .
At just 23, the machinations in Washington were difficult to process for a player who was used to success and stardom. Haskins looked miserable after Sunday’s game. As frustrating as his game and behavior were, it was impossible not to feel bad about how defeated he seemed to be.
“Definitely the most difficult week of my life,” said Haskins on Sunday night. “I just want to recover and move on and pray and get my life in order.”
If you do – frankly, even if you don’t – Haskins will certainly have an opportunity, and probably more than one, to resurrect his career elsewhere. He is young and physically talented and a fresh start may be exactly what Haskins needs, far from the perception that the owner has imposed on his coaches and in a place where he can work on his game and grow in silence.
Washington is, surprisingly, still in a position to make the playoffs. This is a credit to Rivera and Smith, whose own story of great payoff was the counterweight to Haskins’ decline.
If Washington makes it into the postseason, it will help provide coverage for what, the Football Team has to wait, is the final fiasco engendered by Snyder’s regimes. The dysfunction has been deep for years, and Rivera still has a lot of cleaning work to do, as does Snyder, who was confronted by a series of accusations of widespread abuse of women in his organization.
There is a broader conversation about why NFL culture and its fans promote more discussion of Haskins’ mistakes than Snyder’s. But it says a lot about a franchise that the shockingly quick failure and the exile of a choice in the first round can evoke the sympathy of another who suffered the same fate: