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Weve seen the workout videos and the bombs that Washington Redskins quarterback Dwayne Haskins has been letting loose on the field this offseason, and nearly every fan of the team is hoping that it leads to success in the regular season and beyond.

However, its important to note that not all of Haskins struggles were physical in 2019 a lot had to to with mental decisions on third downs, and even some maturity questions off the field. So while we cant see how that side of his game is improving, we are at least getting more information on what the young QB is doing in order to build up his mental fortitude.

Hes been playing a lot of chess.

While working with QB trainer Quincy Avery, Haskins has been joining up with other NFL players to improve an intangible skill: brainpower.

I got each of my quarterbacks with a chess pro, Seth Makowsky, Avery said on The MMQB Podcast. So I got them all playing chess to that we can start coming up with procedures that we can go through not only in chess but at the line of scrimmage.

So the same way we go to a chessboard, I look left to right, identify my threats, where am I under attack, how can I attack them those are the same sort of steps that I need to take when I approach the line of scrimmage.

It may not result in more accurate passes or a few extra scrambling yards, but being able to dissect schemes at the line of scrimmage should directly result in fewer sacks and better blitz pick-ups.

Whats the front, which way are the safeties rotating, who can bring me pressure, how do I protect myself from that pressure, how do I attack the defense, Avery said, drawing a parallel from the chess board to the gridiron. Its having a checklist of things that you ned to do every time you come to the line of scrimmage so youre not wasting mental energy trying to figure things out at the last minute, so youre not getting beat by blitzes because you just didnt check something that you shouldve checked and you wouldve if you had the same process every time you came to the line of scrimmage.

If I get my guys doing this and each one of them has really bought in I think that its going to pay real dividends and these guys are going to reap the benefits this upcoming season.

Later in the interview, Avery went on to commend Haskins for his growth in 2019 despite being in a tough situation, and he even said that he believes the Redskins QB has one of the better Football IQs that hes been around. Based on the physical improvements weve seen from Haskins this offseason, we can only hope that all of this work will start to show itself on the field in 2020 and that it will result in more successes and wins.

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Dwayne Haskins is playing chess to improve decision-making ahead of 2020 season - Redskins Wire