Dwayne Haskins Appears To Be The Favorite To Be Ben Roethlisberger’s Replacement in Pittsburgh

The Dwayne Haskins experiment went just about as bad as could be in Washington.But perhaps he could find something with his second act as Ben Roethlisberger’s backup in Pittsburgh.

It’s no secret that Big Ben’s game has declined to the point where retirement has to be coming soon, but the issue in the Steel City is that there is no viable option to replace the aging Roethlisberger currently on their roster.

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Could Dwayne Haskins be that guy?

If his first preseason game was any indication, perhaps.

Haskins came in to a 13-0 deficit late in the first half, and led the comeback while engineering scoring drives on four straight possessions.

“That was probably the most fun I’ve had since I came into the league,” Haskins said to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Haskins was 16-of-21 for 161 yards with a 113.4 passer rating during the game,  impressing his head coach Mike Tomlin.

“I really thought he was in command tonight,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “He did a great job communicating, going through his progressions. He had a third-down play where I saw him go through three or four reads and throw the ball in middle off the field and convert for us. That was just a snapshot of the type of night he had for us.”

Sure, this was only preseason, and Dwayne Haskins was going up against backups and third-stringers. But for a guy who looked like he had no idea which way was up in Washington, this was definitely a step in the right direction.

Really, for the first time in his career, it just looked like Haskins was enjoying playing the game of football.

“There was a lot of energy with the fans in the stadium, guys gravitating toward me,” Haskins said. “It was a lot of fun being out there and putting points on the board and get a win.”

When Ben Roethlisberger first got to Pittsburgh, he lacked real work ethic, got into trouble during the offseason, and sometimes rubbed teammates the wrong way.

Pittsburgh simply made it work given Big Ben’s elite talent level and ability to play his best football in the fourth quarter.

Could they try to similarly turn Dwayne Haskins’ career around when #7 decides to hang em up?

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