Infamous Kirk Cousins blunder actually wasn’t his fault
By Adam Patrick
Before joining the Minnesota Vikings, Kirk Cousins had some forgettable moments with the Washington Football Team.
Throughout most of his tenure in the NFL, current Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins has been the target of a lot of criticism.
Some of this criticism of Cousins is deserved. But then there are plenty of other times where people just enjoy ridiculing the guy no matter what.
Context never matters for some when it comes to criticizing Cousins and until recently, it didn’t matter back in 2015 when the quarterback made an infamous decision as a member of the Washington Football Team.
Minnesota Vikings quarterback not to blame for 2015 blunder
In Week 16 of the 2015 season, Cousins was in the middle of helping Washington attempt to get a much-needed win over the Philadelphia Eagles. As the first half of the matchup was nearing the end, the current Vikings quarterback made a decision that left many people scratching their heads.
With six seconds left in the second quarter, Washington faced a 1st and Goal from the Eagles six-yard line. But instead of running a play, Cousins decided to take a knee and run the rest of the clock out.
Since Washington didn’t have any timeouts left before this play happened, they went into the half without adding to their six-point lead despite being less than 10 yards away from the end zone in the final seconds of the second quarter.
Most just assumed that this play was a result of Cousins just having a good old-fashioned brain fart. But, apparently, this wasn’t the case.
Former Washington head coach Jay Gruden recently revealed that Cousins kneeling to end the half in this game resulted from two of his teammates not wanting to run the play that was called.
Gruden said the play that was supposed to happen featured former Washington receiver Pierre Garcon running a back-shoulder fade. The former Washington head coach said Garcon hated running fade routes, so he wasn’t happy with the play-call.
"“Pierre (says) I’m not runnin it, he hates them. So, he stood there like three yards from the tackle in his stance like he’s not gonna run it, and then DeSean [Jackson] is standing there like ‘just kick the field goal.’And then Kirk just panicked; he had nothing to do. He took a knee and that was the end of the half.”"
This is a classic case of Cousins being blamed for something that totally was not his fault. But, once again, context doesn’t matter for those who are just looking for any way to criticize the veteran quarterback.
Since Washington was only six yards away from the end zone, there’s a chance that Garcon and Jackson were the only players running pass routes on the play. So when neither of them ran what was called, Cousins had no one to throw to.
Instead, the current Minnesota quarterback decided to avoid a costly turnover and make sure that Washington could go into the half with their lead intact. Given the details that Gruden shared, Cousins didn’t really have any other choice other than what actually happened that afternoon.