Talks of Kirk Cousins being the next franchise star of the Washington Redskins might have been a bit premature. The quarterback certainly had a solid performance against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 3, but the follow-up simply was not there against the New York Giants as Cousins struggled heavily at home in the blowout loss. Cousins certainly downgraded his stock after his performance on Thursday night, but head coach Jay Gruden still has faith in the backup.
Cousins stats were not pretty. The quarterback went 19-of-33 in passing for 257 yards and one touchdown. There was also the four interceptions that he threw as well. It was ugly to say the least and while Cousins did not get much help from his teammates, he did not provide much help either. However, despite the struggles of the quarterback, Gruden noted that he never was thought to put backup Colt McCoy into the game.
"Sometimes you need to play through some of these ruts," Gruden said, via ESPN.com. "As a quarterback, he's the guy that is going to have to lead us in these next few weeks. We need him to pull himself out of it, and keep his head up and move forward to the Seattle Seahawks when we get back. It's a combination of things. We by no means can put the blame on Kirk for this game. This was a total team debacle and total domination by the Giants in all phases. We had a chance there and came back out the second half and we got a touchdown to cut the lead, and the interceptions started to happen, but unfortunate."
Gruden called the loss of a total team effort and Cousins is not to blame for the meltdown. The game was simply another chapter in the quarterback drama brewing for the Redskins. Gruden has already made note that if Cousins is playing well then he will remain the starter no matter what. Robert Griffin III is still months away from returning to the field after dislocating his ankle so Cousins has time to improve his play. The Redskins are confident that Griffin would accept a backup role upon his return if the team was winning.
According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, Washington's eyes are "wide open" when it comes to the potential of Cousins. They might have fallen a bit more into focus after Thursday's game, but the Redskins have every intention of giving Cousins every chance in the world to cement himself as the team's starting quarterback.
