Wash­ing­ton released quar­ter­back Dwayne Hask­ins on Mon­day, hours after coach Ron Rivera said either Alex Smith or Tay­lor Heinicke will start the reg­u­lar-sea­son finale with the NFC East at stake.

Rivera is “opti­mistic” Smith will be ready to play at the Philadel­phia Eagles after miss­ing the past two games with a strained right calf. Hask­ins start­ed those two games, both loss­es, is 1–5 this sea­son and turned the ball over three times in a 20–13 defeat to Car­oli­na on Sun­day that saw him benched for Heinicke.

Rivera said he saw more out of Heinicke — who hadn’t played in the NFL since 2018 — after replac­ing Hask­ins in the fourth quar­ter of that game. Hask­ins was 14 of 28 with two inter­cep­tions and a fum­ble, while Heinicke led a touch­down dri­ve late against the Pan­thers, who were play­ing safe with a big lead.

Hask­ins was fined $40,000 and stripped of his cap­tain­cy last week after vio­lat­ing COVID-19 pro­to­cols for par­ty­ing mask-less with sev­er­al peo­ple after a loss to Seat­tle. It was his sec­ond pro­to­col vio­la­tion this sea­son, and his per­for­mance against Car­oli­na end­ed his time in Washington.

The team is 4–1 with Smith as the starter this sea­son. Rivera said his offense is more suc­cess­ful with the 36-year-old under cen­ter because he man­ages the game bet­ter and doesn’t com­mit mis­takes typ­i­cal of younger players.

After blow­ing its first chance to win the divi­sion by los­ing to Car­oli­na, Wash­ing­ton (6–9) just needs to beat the Eagles to get into the play­offs and host a wild-card round game. The game was moved to prime­time Sunday.

“We’re play­ing with house mon­ey and that’s the best part of it,” Rivera said. “No one expect­ed us to be here.”

WHAT’S WORKING

Wash­ing­ton remains a sec­ond-half team, hold­ing Car­oli­na with­out points and scor­ing 10 to con­tin­ue a sea­son-long trend. It didn’t add up to a come­back this time, but the offense and defense have improved after half­time for a while now.

“When we come out in the sec­ond half and you’re already warm in the game, you’re feel­ing good, but you got to do that the first play of the game,” defen­sive end Chase Young said. “I feel like that’s the only way.”

WHAT NEEDS HELP

Washington’s way has been start­ing slow in every facet of the game. Against Car­oli­na, receiv­er Cam Sims said the defense did some things play­ers weren’t used to, and the defense took for­ev­er to warm up.

A team with eyes on the play­offs won’t last long — if it gets there — play­ing like this in the first half.

“We can’t wait until the sec­ond half to start fast, and that’s some­thing we just know,” Young said. “It’s some­thing that we’ve been work­ing on and we just got to get bet­ter at it.”

STOCK UP

Young is already the youngest play­er in fran­chise his­to­ry to be picked for the Pro Bowl and at 21 is the team’s newest cap­tain after replac­ing Hask­ins. His stock keeps ris­ing, though, after forc­ing a fum­ble on a sack of Ted­dy Bridge­wa­ter and pump­ing up Heinicke when he entered the game.

STOCK DOWN

The Hask­ins era is done in Wash­ing­ton, and it’s unclear what’s next for the Ohio State prod­uct. The 15th over­all pick in 2019 is now in worse shape than Josh Rosen after Ari­zona moved on, giv­en his pro­to­col vio­la­tions and lack of production.

INJURED

All eyes are on Smith’s right calf — which is the same leg he broke the tib­ia and fibu­la two years ago, requir­ing 17 surg­eries and a tita­ni­um rod to be insert­ed. But there’s also top receiv­er Ter­ry McLaurin’s nag­ging ankle injury that forced him out against Carolina.

KEY NUMBER

0 — Points Wash­ing­ton has scored on its open­ing dri­ve of a game, the fewest in a sea­son since at least 2000. It would be the only time in the past 20 years a team has come up emp­ty on its first pos­ses­sion in all 16 reg­u­lar-sea­son games if Wash­ing­ton fails to score on its open­ing dri­ve at Philadelphia.

NEXT STEPS

Get Heinicke ready just in case Smith can’t play. This would be just his sec­ond career start.