Giants Defenders Say Playing Against Kirk Cousins Was Like Christmas
By Jason Lisk
Kirk Cousins came crashing down to earth last night, after a short stretch against Jacksonville and Philadelphia where he threw 6 touchdown passes. Cousins fumbled once, and threw four second half interceptions in Washington’s blowout defeat to the New York Giants, each looking worse than the previous one.
The Giants players, though, were like kids on Christmas.
“It’s like Christmas,” defensive back Zack Bowman said, and then in a complete change of similes, went shark week. “It’s like blood in the water. We just keep going at him and going at him. They come in bunches.”
Antrel Rolle, when asked about Bowman’s comments, repeated: “Christmas”. Christmas comes a little early this year; the next game between the teams is on December 14th.
Before the season, and before Griffin’s injury, I wrote about how Cousins was ridiculously overrated. After the previous two weeks, I got plenty of retweets on that article. All quarterbacks have a bad or great game–Matt Flynn turned a 6 TD game into a free agent contract, and Chad Henne and Ryan Fitzpatrick both have 4 touchdown games in the last calendar year.
We’ll have plenty of time to evaluate Cousins before Griffin is ready to return, though I am guessing the articles saying this is Cousins’ team will slow down. Here is a summary of his career numbers after last night.
58.4% completions, 7.1 yards per attempt, 14 TD, 15 INT (Washington 1-5 when he starts)
Cousins is a gambler who does not have Brett Favre’s arm strength or ability. Since the start of 2012, among the 40 quarterbacks who have thrown 300 passes, he is dead last in interception rate, behind Geno Smith and Matt Cassel. He is 34th in passer rating, nestled between Chad Henne and Josh Freeman on one side, and Matt Cassel and Brandon Weeden on the other. He’ll likely have more up and down performances (the Washington receiving group, when healthy, is pretty good) because I don’t think he has the arm strength and decision making to consistently avoid big mistakes in the NFL. We should have a pretty good idea if that is right before Christmas.
[photo via USA Today Sports Images]