3 reasons Steelers should not have signed QB Dwayne Haskins
By Tommy Jaggi
Not the type of quarterback the Steelers need
One of the biggest issues with Ben Roethlisberger in 2020 was his inability to throw the football down the field. Despite attempting to do so several times per contest, Ben was extremely inefficient in this area and it ended up limiting the team on offense.
Haskins is even more reluctant to sling the pigskin deep than Ben. According to Team Rankings, Haskins finished 34th out of 35 qualifying quarterbacks in yards per pass thrown, and his 6.0 yards per attempt was embarrassingly bad in 2020. If you look at all of the best quarterbacks in the NFL today, they all have the ability to routinely sling the ball down the field, and there are 23 quarterbacks who threw for over 7.0 yards per attempt this season. Throwing the ball deep opens up the running game and allows everything else to run smoothly.
Even dating back to his days at Ohio State, Haskins was just a dink-and-dunk passer who methodically moved the ball down the field and relied on his receivers to do all of the work after the catch. This is not the recipe for success in the NFL, and he offers very little upside as a franchise quarterback as a result.
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Dwayne Haskins could very well revamp his career on another football team, but I would be floored if he ever lived up to his value as a former first-round draft choice. I just don’t see the upside that others see in him and I think it would have been wise for the Steelers to pass on signing the young quarterback.