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What Cousins did NOT do is scramble on a keeper for a key first down in scoring territory as Dak Prescott did.
That facet of his game still eludes him in crunch time, especially in scoring territory where he takes an unnecessarily high number of sacks.
How many times have we been pushed out of field goal range by a 8-10 yard sack on third down where Kirk either needs to throw the ball away OR take off on his own and try and get yards downfield?
Can the Redskins win with Kirk Cousins if the rest of their team is as good as say the 2002 Bucs or 2000 Ravens defenses?
Yes.
The trouble is you can't put those kinds of teams together anymore, or at least keep them together.
Kirk came into the NFL at the wrong time.
Joe Gibbs would have made a big winner out of him just as he did with Mark Rypien.
In today's NFL you can't hide weaknesses the way coaches used to be able to.
Remember the job Bill Parcells did with Jeff Hostetler in the 1990 playoffs and Super Bowl?
Those days are over.
I don't really buy what you're selling. It's pretty obvious what Cousins problem is this season and it has nothing to do with the 'new NFL'. He's trying to do too much. Without a healthy Jordan Reed and minus Jackson and Garcon, he's desperately waiting to get rid of the ball hoping something will open up. The results, particularly working behind a revolving cast on the line that can't protect him, is also pretty predictable.
Setting aside more roster volatility since Free Agency has made it possible, I don't think it's any harder to build a solid roster cast now than it ever was - afterall, every team is subject to the same system constraints in that regard, aren't they? Cousins has been less successful this year for obvious reasons. The turnstile on the OL has put a ton of pressure on him. The running game which was no great shakes even with a healthy roster, is not a reliable threat in 2017. So it's all on Cousins. He isn't getting time to throw, and even when he is, neither Doctson nor Pryor, expected to at least mitigate the release of Jackson and Garcon, have lived up to expectations. That leaves you with Crowder who has been a solid contributor (setting aside last night) and Grant and Vernon Davis. That's a big dropoff in talent from the previous year.
I just don't think you can draw a lot of conclusions from 2017.
Cousins is a pretty damn good QB imho. If we'd been healthy this season, we'd have absolutely been a playoff team - again, imho.