Washington O-Lineman Praises Kirk Cousins, Tacitly Bashes RG3

It’s been a crazy football season for Washington, who find themselves with the option of resting their starters tomorrow for a home playoff game next weekend. Mike Jones of the Washington Post walked through five major moments of the team’s season, which included this quote from an offensive lineman that praised Kirk Cousins, and, by extension, laid the wood to RG3’s attitude and work ethic:

"“The proof’s in the pudding now,” center Kory Lichtensteiger said. “We’re playoff dancing because of him. [At the time of the decision], it was good to see that there’s repercussions and rewards; repercussions for not playing well and rewards for doing the right thing: preparing, performing in practice and the preseason. It was just good to know that you get rewarded for hard work and performing.”"

It’s not exactly a secret that Washington’s offensive line had some friction with Griffin, whose propensity to hold onto the football in an attempt to break big plays led to ample sacks, which reflected poorly on the unit. As Jason Lisk and Michael Shamburger wrote two years ago, Griffin’s offensive linemen helped him up after hits less often than was the case for other quarterbacks around the league; this was one occasion where Lichtensteiger was in the neighborhood, but didn’t extend his hand, and Griffin was helped up by Justin Smith of the 49ers:

Nevertheless, Kirk Cousins has played better than many of us expected he could/would, and Washington has also benefitted from a weak division. On stability alone—recent history suggests RG3 would not make it through a full season intact—Cousins has been an upgrade, and anecdotally his teammates do seem to respond to him better than they had to Griffin since his knee injury in his rookie year.

Going forward, two subplots worth monitoring are whether Cousins gets paid big money by the franchise this offseason, and where RG3 attempts to resurrect his career.