Kirk Cousins, after another multiple-interception game, is running out of rope

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/kirk-cousins-is-running-out-of-rope/2015/10/18/74780634-75db-11e5-bc80-9091021aeb69_story.html

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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Kirk Cousins is fool’s gold. He looks so shiny bright, right up until he disappoints you. Cousins has played enough to establish who he is as an NFL quarterback right now. He’s a guy who is enticing to gamble on, but he doesn’t pay off.

This is where it gets nasty. The hope that Cousins can be the solution for Washington at quarterback is disappearing, along with any hope that the club will have a healthy and stable dynamic. Coach Jay Gruden went way out on a limb for Cousins, declared him the starter over Robert Griffin III and then stood by him despite his early-season interceptions. But after a 34-20 loss to the New York Jets, Gruden sounded like an apologist for him. “We have spent a lot of time and invested a lot of time this season in Kirk,” he said, adding that he doesn’t want to make “any kind of crazy decisions.”

There was a detectable hesitation in Gruden when asked how long he can live with double turnovers every week from his quarterback. Pressed on whether Cousins will remain the starter for the rest of the season, Gruden said tepidly, “That’s the intent.”

[Brewer: As season threatens to unravel, Gruden calls for a code red]

There were all kinds of unspokens after the word “intent.” That’s the intent — unless Gruden gets fired before the season is over for backing the wrong guy. That’s the intent — unless Cousins has another two-interception game again next week. That’s the intent — unless the owner and general manager get impatient and force a change to Colt McCoy.

Cousins is 2-4 as a starter this season, and in all four losses he has thrown two picks. Overall he has played in 20 games in his career, and in fully half of them he has delivered up the ball to the other team at least twice. Sometimes more. Cousins has done enough other things well that Gruden chose to see the glass half-full instead of half-empty. But with his game-killing performance against the Jets, a tipping point was reached. Another game like this, and Gruden simply will be playing favorites if he sticks by Cousins.

There was nothing half-full about the interception Cousins threw less than five minutes into the third quarter against the Jets. It was just full-on ugly. And it came at the worst possible time and swung the momentum of the game. On a second and eight from his own 23, Cousins fired a mindless, late and hurried ball at Ryan Grant in the flat, where Pro Bowl cornerback Darrelle Revis was lurking. “Essentially need to throw it away there, need to put it in the bleachers,” Cousins said.

“We talk about not making plays worse,” Gruden said.

Cousins took a bad play and made it much, much worse. Washington had just come out of an overachieving first half to lead 13-10 despite being depleted by injuries and had every reason to feel encouraged. It was deep in its own territory early in the third quarter of a close game. By turning the ball over at that point, Cousins triggered a 17-0 third quarter for the Jets, and the game became a rout.

[Depleted Redskins are run ragged by Jets]

“I’ll definitely go back and watch the film and say where could I have gone with the football, what could I have done better,” Cousins said. “I certainly don’t want to be throwing interceptions.”

How many times has Cousins talked about learning from his mistakes? When are the lessons learned going to start showing up on the scoreboard? When will he stop repeating the same mistakes on loop? Just a week ago he threw a similar hurried pass toward Grant, with the same result, to lose to the Atlanta Falcons in overtime. His greatest weakness, he admits, is “situational awareness.”

Cousins insists he will learn situational awareness if he’s allowed to work through his mistakes. “That comes with playing,” he said. “And experience. That’s something that I do believe I will improve upon and can improve upon. It’s not something where I look and go, ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t get better at it.’ I think that’s something I can and will get better at.”

In Cousins’s defense, quarterback play is a matter of a thousand unseen nuances, as well as dependencies on other players. “Overall, you hate to pin this game on Kirk,” Gruden said. Cousins had no running game to turn to and was working with a substitute center, in Josh LeRibeus, and left tackle, in 29-year-old Arena League veteran Ty Nsekhe, filling in for Trent Williams. He had to worry about communication and signals with them while keeping an eye on a blitz-prone Jets defensive front.

But at some point Cousins has to become a positive difference maker instead of a negative one. And it won’t quell the brewing quarterback controversy that Gruden goes to such lengths to defend Cousins when he has a guy on the bench in Griffin that he has been much harder on publicly for his mistakes. At times Gruden even sounded like he was making excuses for Cousins.

“It was a little windy,” Gruden said. “But, and also, a lot of pressure on him. There’s a lot of things going on pre-snap that he’s got to deal with, getting the formations and protections and all that. . . . Kirk’s not at this stage in his career right now — nor is anyone on our roster — to carry the team throwing the ball as much as we would have had to today.”

Wind? Pressure? Formations? That’s the job. And it’s becoming increasingly doubtful that Cousins can hold on to it.

For more by Sally Jenkins, visit washingtonpost.com/jenkins.