Pig Pen Podcast: Better, but not great

Dwayne Haskins Jr. played one of his best games as an NFL quarterback on Sunday.

Following last week’s turnover filled performance Ron Rivera went on record saying Haskins needed to be better if he wanted to continue to lead the Washington Football Team. Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens he was better. He wasn’t great, but he was better.

Haskins played with a degree of confidence and comfort that hadn’t been present all season. That’s progress.

Not turning the ball over, that’s big progress.

Sailing check downs that could’ve picked up meaningful yards on early downs, those issues are still there. He was better, not perfect.

At no point watching the game, as Haskins went toe-to-toe with the reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson, did it feel like he was out of place. In a season that will me filled with more moral victories than actual victories, that’s the biggest one yet.

The deep ball Haskins launched to Terry McLaurin late in the fourth quarter was an absolute beauty. So beautiful that it makes you wonder, “Why did they wait until being down three scores in the fourth quarter to unleash that?”

The result of the game wasn’t all that surprising. Anyone that actually thought an upset was coming has a level of optimism many of us can only dream about. But Ron Rivera said he wanted his quarterback to be better, and his quarterback was better.

In this podcast I also discussed the impressive performance by Antonio Gibson, what went wrong on defense and Ron Rivera’s health.

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