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The Roar

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A capital failure: Washington’s season already on the ropes

Kirk Cousins can fool you sometimes. (Keith Allison / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Expert
20th September, 2016
5

There are times, and even half-seasons it appears, where Kirk Cousins tricks you into thinking that he’s not Kirk Cousins. (Click to Tweet)

He carries himself with confidence – yes, we like that Kirk – and makes some elite quarterback-type throws, like his lone touchdown pass so far this season, holding steady in the pocket, staring down the Dallas pass rush, and weighting a centimetre-perfect throw to Jamison Crowder in the end zone.

But for all of those throws, there’s the reality that outside of the 11-game stretch to end last season, Cousins is a quarterback with an atrocious career touchdown-interception ratio of 25-30.

You can’t entirely throw out those 11 games, where Cousins put up MVP contender level stats. But you can throw out a lot of it. Cousins put up those numbers against the woeful NFC East and the dreadful defences of Tampa Bay, New Orleans, Chicago and Buffalo. When Cousins came up against the defensive competence of the Jets, Patriots and Panthers he was as mediocre as ever.

Cousins has reverted back to type in Washington’s pathetic opening two-game stanza of the 2016 season, looking more like the archetypical interception-throwing quarterback that opposition fans jeer with condescending joy than the franchise signal-caller some thought he might be.

Two interceptions against Pittsburgh – the first, a horribly telegraphed pass to Ryan Shazier that led to the game-killing touchdown – were followed by a symphony of missed throws and one of the worst passes the season will see against Dallas.

Even with the vaunted, legendary Dak Prescott carving up their defence, Washington had a chance to put the game on ice up a field goal and driving deep in the red zone with ten minutes to go. On third and goal from the six, Cousins went back and eyed off Pierre Garcon from the snap, never seeing Barry Church sitting on his throw the entire time.

It wasn’t as comically inept as something like the Butt Fumble, but in a lot of ways it was even worse – a third down pass in the red zone where the quarterback never even contemplates backside safety help is anathema to all that is decent about quarterback play. It was the type of throw that ends a season.

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Dallas scored the game-winning touchdown on the resulting possession and that’s where Washington are now left, with their season on the brink of being over.

The offence has laboured against two defences in Dallas and Pittsburgh that aren’t exactly all-world, and the defence has been a catastrophe so far. There’s no shame in getting gashed by Antonio Brown and the Pittsburgh Steelers, but there’s more than a little indignity having Prescott put up 27 points on your home turf.

The D in DC has ranged from dysfunctional to outright comical, a fiesta of missed open-field tackles and coverage breakdowns. 33-year-old DeAngelo Williams’ shimmy and touchdown run between two defenders last week was as impressive on his part as it was glaringly incompetent on Washington’s.

The vibe of the off-season in the capital was one of continuity and contentment when it needed to be much more pro-active. Washington were OK last season, beating up on an easy schedule to win an awful, injured division, but their off-season was one that a contender has, not one that a team that went 0-4 against teams with a winning record the season prior executes.

The one splashy move in DC was to give all the money to Josh Norman. Norman is a good player, and in the right context a great one. He’s physical, savvy, and with the benefit of a stellar front seven he can be dominant. Washington is not providing that context, though, and Norman is not the type of player who puts number one receivers on Revis Island circa 2010. He’s primarily a zone coverage cornerback, which is fine – so is Richard Sherman. He’s not the problem in Washington, but he was never going to be a panacea either.

Washington’s season isn’t over yet. They get another divisional match-up next week in New York, a rematch between Norman and Odell Beckham Jr in one of the league’s suddenly bitterest rivalries. With Tony Romo sidelined, the Giants look like the class of the NFC East, with the three-headed monster receiving corps of Beckham, young star Sterling Shepard and the rejuvenated Victor Cruz, and an improved defence imposing itself on teams.

Washington can get their year back on track with an upset win and cast the pervasive sloppiness and disappointment of the opening fortnight into the past. But a loss in Jersey and Washington’s season – with a brutal stretch to come in the middle of the season that goes Bengals, Vikings, Packers, at Cowboys, at Cardinals, Panthers – will surely be over.

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The briefness of the NFL’s 16-game schedule is cruel, and horribly deceptive. It means that you can get sucked into a small sample and believe that you might have your franchise quarterback and everything that you need already in front of you. It also means that your season can be over after three weeks, less than a month after the future seemed intoxicatingly bright.

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