Pick a storyline: Washington’s 2020 season is what memorable sports movies are made from

Now that the dust has settled a little bit and we can collectively start accepting the fact that the Washington Football Team’s 2020 season has come to an end, the time for reflection can start to begin.

One thing we often like to do in the American zeitgeist is blow things out of proportion, and make real events seem bigger than they were long after the fact. Whether it’s a historical event or the story of a person’s life, many times we see those tales taken to the big screen and made to be something that they weren’t, often for the sake of box office sales or Hollywood celebrity.

If there’s one thing we know after watching Washington’s 2020 season though, it’s that there are a number of storylines that could easily be transferred to the big screen.

Maybe it will happen one day, or maybe it’s all a pipe dream, but as an ode to what was an incredible season in Washington, here are some movie ideas that can be created from what we saw in Landover over the last several months.

The Alex Smith Story

(AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

This one is easy, and the heavy favorite for storylines that has a high, HIGH chance of getting made into an actual movie someday. Talented player recruited to a non-flashy school in college where he finishes 4th in the Heisman voting and wins a Fiesta Bowl, later getting drafted with the No. 1 overall pick. Things don't go his way, and he time and again gets passed over by younger and arguably more talented players, constantly looking for a new home. Finally, he finds it in Washington, and success starts to come. Of course, tragedy then strikes in the form of a career-threatening injury that left our hero fighting for his life with a leg amputation becoming a real possibility. Against all odds, Smith fights back, relearns to walk, relearns to run, and by some miracle, returns to the football field. The miracles keep coming, and he finds himself starting in the NFL once again, and then winning, and then leading his team to a playoff berth. Of course, it wasn't a Hollywood ending in 2020 for Smith, but who's to say that his story is over? No matter what happens next, the groundwork for an unbelievable sports story are there, and you can almost guarantee you'll watch it play out on the big screen at some point.

The Ron Rivera Story

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Much like Alex Smith, Ron Rivera's story is one of hardships and improbable odds. After taking the job in Washington at the start of this year, Rivera was tasked with navigating the COVID-19 pandemic with a new and young team, while trying to deal with an ownership group that seemed incapable of staying out of his way. At the time that actual football was finally set to return, Rivera is thrown a curveball and diagnosed with lymph node cancer right before the season starts. Tasked with coaching his team and changing the culture while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Rivera struggles every day to get up and do his job, but he does so magnificently, building a team that wins, and forming a group of guys who play for each other and love the game. He ends up coaching his team to the playoffs, and (hopefully) winning the Coach of the Year award along the way. As the screen fades to black on the movie, a note writes something about Washington going on to win multiple division and NFC and Super Bowl titles over the next several years. Can't you see that happening?

The Taylor Heinicke Story

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After an exciting college career at Old Dominion and a quick but unsuccessful stint in the NFL and XFL, a young kid is left to his own devices and is at home studying for his online college exams. One day, his phone rings and an NFL team wants him to come in and be their emergency quarterback on the practice squad. Of course, he accepts. Fast forward a few weeks, and Heinicke is all of a sudden the last option for the Washington Football Team, and he learns the day before the team's first playoff game in five years that he will be making his second career start in the NFL. With nothing to lose, he takes the field and becomes an absolute freaking legend over the next four quarters, going toe to toe with the greatest quarterback to ever play in the NFL, dueling him to the very end. (As I write this out, I can't even believe this all happened... None of this is made up. This may be the leader in the clubhouse to be a new sports movie.) At the climax of the movie, Heinicke is left late in the game, trailing by a score. He evades pressure, scrambles, and goes for it all, diving headfirst for the endzone, stretching the ball to touch the pylon, and scoring a touchdown. While doing so, he hears a pop and realizes he separated the AC joint in his shoulder, but guts through the pain to keep playing. (Wow, this actually happened.) As all good sports movies do, some editorializing would be useful here, and Heinicke would come back from the locker room and lead Washington on a long drive, scoring a game-winning touchdown to advance to the next round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, in real life his comeback efforts fell short, leaving Washington's season to come to an end, but his story is impressive nonetheless.

The Dwayne Haskins Story

(Photo by Will Newton/Getty Images)

For the sake of this exercise, let's go ahead and say that we hope Dwayne Haskins' story in the NFL is not over. That's true, too — we absolutely hope that Haskins can figure things out and find a new team where he can succeed in the future. The story of Dwayne Haskins starts out as cautionary and may remind young kids to keep their foot on the gas rather than coasting on their abilities. A young star football player who has an NFL arm coming out of high school lands on one of the top teams in college, and he breaks every school record there is in his one season starting. From there, he obviously takes his chance to leap for the NFL and college the big paycheck. Drafted in the first round when many thought he'd go later, Haskins takes the chance to say every team who passed up on him made a mistake, when the dramatic irony shows it was actually Washington who made a mistake by drafting him. His first season doesn't go as planned, but he puts in the necessary and visible work in the offseason to get the fanbase back on board and earn the starting job, captaincy, etc. Of course, he still isn't ready for the NFL game, so he is benched once again, and then ultimately released after screwing up one too many times, capped off by a strip-club escapade that was the last straw (Editorializing a bit here...) In the movie version, this is the low point for Haskins, but something that he can build himself back up from and hope to use has a reason to get better. He ultimately finds a team to give him a chance and works his way to glory down the road. Happily ever after.