Editor’s Note: During Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams, starting quarterback, Kyle Allen, exited the game in the second quarter after a hard hit. Backup, Alex Smith, made a historic entrance, taking his first snap since November of 2018, when he broke his leg which spiraled into a life-threatening injury. Smith finished the game 9/14 with 74 yards. The Washington Football Team lost the game 30-10. They will be facing divison rivals, New York Giants, next Sunday, with Kyle Allen set to start.

Ron Rivera, head coach of the Washington Football Team, announced on Wednesday that second year quarterback, Dwayne Haskins, has been benched. This is due to poor play in the first four games of the season. He will be replaced by Kyle Allen, who has played for Rivera for the past two seasons in Carolina.

The move will have Haskins go from starting to inactive on Sundays as he’s been relegated to third-string on the depth chart. Alex Smith will be backing Allen up. Rivera hopes that this will serve as a test for the young player. In the Zoom presser that the coach held on Wednesday, he made it clear that “this is not an indictment on Haskins, but an indictment on the situation that we’re in.” This signals that Haskins’ future in Washington may not be dead in the water after all. However, skeptics will cite that Rivera was not with the organization when the quarterback was drafted. He “inherited” this roster and will do what he can to make it his own.

It is no surprise that Rivera is doing something about Haskins’ poor play. He seemed dissatisfied after the loss to the Baltimore Ravens in week four, after the QB missed a wide open receiver in the endzone on fourth down late in the game. “I’m a little disappointed in the situational awareness,” the coach said in the postgame presser. “He’ll have to understand that ball has to be in a position to put it in the end zone.”

The fact that Rivera is opting for Kyle Allen to come in Haskins’ place, rather than Alex Smith is a logical decision as Allen played in a total of 15 games for the coach during his previous tenure in Carolina. This means that Allen knows the offensive system very well. Smith, on the other hand, is coming off of what was a potentially life-threatening injury. He has made heroic and unfathomable strides in his recovery, however he still has not played in a game since 2018.

Only the future can tell whether Haskins will be a part of this organization going forward. Either way, Rivera expects him to take a step back, have his turn on the bench, and grow as a player before he can ever take the field again. That should be the true test for Haskins and his career.