Jay Gruden on Kirk Cousins: ‘It’s not just Kirk’
The Washington Redskins became the second straight team to be blown out by a rival on Thursday Night Football, as the finally-clicking New York Giants let it pour on the overmatched Redskins defense in the 45-14 contest. Of course, the main talking point for the Redskins was the performance of third-year QB Kirk Cousins, who is basically auditioning for the starting quarterback job with Robert Griffin III out. After an easy game against the Jacksonville Jaguars and a standout performance against the Philadelphia Eagles, Cousins threw four interceptions and got Niles Paul shelled in what was truly a horrific performance. Cousins stared down receivers, didn’t look comfortable in the pocket, made poor reads, and made even worse decisions (his decision-making and comfort are seen as two distinct advantages over RG3).
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Redskins head coach Jay Gruden, who seems to favor Cousins in the eyes of some, unsurprisingly did his best to take the heat away from his quarterback, pointing out the failings of the rest of the team. He said, via the Washington Post’s Mike Jones, “There weren’t a lot of people – the defense didn’t help him out, the offensive line didn’t help him out, the receivers didn’t help him out. There’s a lot of other factors that we could have had better game, a better outing, if other people were helping more. It’s not just Kirk. Kirk, his mistakes are magnified obviously, but there are other guys who had mistakes that were equally important and devastating to the football game.”
For my money, Cousins was the Redskins worst player on Thursday night, but he wasn’t even the biggest problem in the grand scheme of things. At the end of the day, the Redskins clearly didn’t do enough to upgrade their pass defense, and it showed. Their cornerbacks couldn’t cover, they have the worst safeties in the NFL, and Perry Riley gets exposed against tight ends (though, again, it’s not like Ryan Clark and Brandon Meriweather have been significantly better).