Alex Smith’s return to practice has added some intrigue to Washington head coach Ron Rivera’s decision about this year’s starting quarterback and Rivera wasn’t in the mood to share when he’ll make that call during a Friday videoconference with reporters.
Rivera was asked if he has a timeline to make a decision between Dwayne Haskins, Kyle Allen and Smith. He said he did, but smiled and said no in response to a followup asking if he wanted to share that timeline.
Seeing Smith work in 11-on-11 drills would seem to be helpful to the decision-making process. Rivera was asked what he needs to see from Smith to move to that step.
“It’s also not just what we’re seeing, but how he’s feeling,” Rivera said. “And that’s a conversation that we’re going to have, just to see where he is mentally and go from there. That’s one of the things we try to do too, is we also try to keep him in the loop as we’ve decided and as we’ve gone forward with him.”
The Eagles will be in town two weeks from Sunday and the team will have to start specific preparations for that game before too long, so the timeline for Rivera’s choice isn’t going to be an extended one.