The Alex Smith

Dwayne Haskins is becoming close to Alex Smith, and he's starting to play like him too

Last season the Redskins logged four victories in games with fewer than 200 yards passing. In fact, even fewer. In three different games, Redskins quarterback Alex Smith finished the game with 178 pass yards.

178 pass yards. That's an incredibly low total in a league designed for passing offense, but here's the crazy part: The Redskins won those games. And on Sunday, Redskins rookie QB Dwayne Haskins did his best Alex Smith impression.

Washington beat Carolina 29-21 and played by far their best game of the year. The Redskins piled up nearly 250 rush yards and played suffocating defense after an ugly start. Embattled Redskins defensive coordinator Greg Manusky deserves credit for having his group play well in consecutive weeks too and for bottling up Carolina RB Christian McCaffrey. The rookie completed 13 of 25 passes and only threw for 147 yards. He threw no touchdown passes, but he didn't have any interceptions either. The air attack wasn't always pretty, but the run game was so effective, it didn't need to be. Protecting the ball was more important, and Haskins largely did that. Just like Smith used to do.

During the last few weeks, Haskins has talked repeatedly about his growing relationship with Smith, and how important the veteran's presence and knowledge are to the rookie. Smith is present at seemingly every Redskins' practice and is often on the field working with the 15th overall pick. Clearly, some of it is working. Haskins has been smart with the football, particularly against Carolina, and uses his legs more than many expected. That's what Smith did last year before his leg injury, and the Redskins were winning games.
That growth is happening for Haskins in real-time. Smith is a big part of it. Sunday in Charlotte was the newest, and best, example of that.

Dwayne Haskins says he's 'blessed' to call Alex Smith a teammate
Tuesday morning Redskins rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins posted to Twitter reacting to Smith's video, "This man, is one of the best people I ever been around. Blessed to be able to call him a teammate."

https://www.nbcsports.com/washington/redskins/dwayne-haskins-says-hes-blessed-call-alex-smith-teammate

Isnt the other thread still locked?

The main problem with this article is that it is insisting that bad QB play equals wins. It ignores the defense bottling up McCaffrey and the 250 yds rushing. It ignores Adrian Peterson's carry job during the first half of last year, and their defense playing great and forcing a ton of TOs for Alex and the offense. Alex was awful on the Skins, worse than I even thought he would play.

Alex may be the most awesome guy to ever live, but he's not doing Dwayne any favors teaching him the "Do nothing but checkdown all game and pray for everyone else to show up" strategy. It worked for Alex out of the pure luck of playing on talented teams that forced TO after TO on defense.

Originally posted by VaBeachNiner:

Isnt the other thread still locked?

Yes and this one should get locked too before things get out of hand with posts like the one above, which is wildly inaccurate and bursting at the seams with personal bias. You know full well there are a number of certain people on this board cannot contain themselves if they see the name "Alex Smith" flash across the screen at any given time. The other thread was locked for good reason, so I hope we lock this one up ASAP.

Until Alex is approaching ready to play I can't see the point in this thread, other than to allow those who - amazingly after all this time - still have to b***h about him to vent their spleen. That doesn't seem like particularly nice thing so....