How will Kirk Cousins perform over the last eight games of 2016?

[Tsailand]

So, forget about Kirk's spot starts in 2012 and 2013, those are irrelevant.  He played exactly 1/3rd of the 2014 season, and then all of 2015, and the first half of 2016 so far.  For the purpose of this questions, I've split 2015 into two halves, and then I've extrapolated the 2014 stats to what they would be over a full eight games (just multiplied them by 1.5). 

My question to you is, how do you think he will do in these last eight games of 2016?

KIRK COUSINS	Completions	Attempts	comp%	Yards	YPA	Tds	Ints
2014 (projected to eight games)	189	306	61.8	2565	8.4	15	13.5
2015, 1st eight games	206	308	66.9	1954	6.3	10	9
2015, 2nd eight games	173	235	73.6	2212	9.4	19	2
2016, 1st eight games	215	321	67	2454	7.6	12	7

[Renegade7]

Kirk is settling in, we are all witnesses : )

[NattyBo]

Through 8 games he leads the league in passing yards. 

 

[wit33]

Who cares about stats. He has great understanding of the scheme, talent around him and solid offensive staff. 

Would like to see him become more comfortable with situational football, manipulation of the pocket, off schedule plays, using his legs to run for timely yards, and overall confidence. 

I want Kirk to be the Skins QB and believe he will rightfully be resigned. I believe/hope the things I've listed come with continued experience. 

With that said, I believe he will play well the second half of the season. I'm hopeful Robert Kelley stays put as the starting RB, it was helpful to have a back get positive yards and have the ability to make people miss. Kelley should help the play action game and create some bigger plays. 

Kirk's ceiling appears to be Matt Ryan and I would be happy with that. 

[TouchdownSkin]

He's improving every week.  I think he will finish the regular season much like he ended 2015.

[redskins59]

The second half is supposed to be tougher.  So I really don't see him playing as well as the second half of 2015.  I think it will mirror the first half of 2016.

And that will be a good season.

[chrisxcore]

Kirk is just fine. He'll likely improve over the course of the next several weeks and finish 2016 strong. At least that's what I expect.

Imagine what he could do with a consistent running game and a solid defense? My guess is that will be the priority this offseason. That's also what I expect.

[NoCalMike]

I think Kirk is who he is.  He is a really good scheme guy.  He knows where the match ups are pre-snap and usually gets the ball to where the mis match is.  He has good timing with the WRs & TE's and he limits his mistakes. 

Things I'd like to see him improve on after the bye week:

-- Downfield accuracy (probably the most obvious one). Something he used to be better at. Not sure if it is because he played with more reckless abandon earlier in his career which led to more of this, but also more turnovers?  However he simply isn't accurate with the football downfield right now.

-- Adjusting to what happens *after* the snap.  Cousins is great at not being fooled by the defense and understanding what they are trying to do at the line. If the mismatch says find Jordan Reed for the easy 3 yard pickup, he will certainly get the ball there.  However I want to see Cousins get better at reacting to the defense after the snap. Don't concede that you are throwing it to Reed for 3 yards when a breakdown in the secondary leaves a wide open Crowder or Garcon for a huge gain.  Scan the field better and go for that big play when it is there.

-- (This one is more of a continue to do this, since he seems to have started doing it more the past couple of games) When the secondary is covering everyone, and you have wide open field in front of you with no defender in sight, tuck that ball and run. You aren't Kirk "Lightning" Cousins out there, however you aren't a statue either. Make the defense pay for clearing out the middle of the field to take away a potential big pass play. Get your easy 10 yards and go for a slide.

[Bigmuss1]

Go Kirk Go!!!

[campbellcooleyconnection]

He just is missing that thing that the Brady,Rogers , Brees etc all have which is awareness.Like someone said when Bungles had 12 men snap the ball, missing/not seeing wide open guys,clock management, throwing Hail Mary passes out of bounds etc.

[NoCalMike]

16 minutes ago, campbellcooleyconnection said:

He just is missing that thing that the Brady,Rogers , Brees etc all have which is awareness.Like someone said when Bungles had 12 men snap the ball, missing/not seeing wide open guys,clock management, throwing Hail Mary passes out of bounds etc.

 

Or when no defender was lined up on Garcon, Garcon is screaming for Kirk to snap the ball, but Kirk never sees him and the Bengals finally call a timeout to bail them out?  

[Wildbunny]

8 hours ago, NoCalMike said:

 

Or when no defender was lined up on Garcon, Garcon is screaming for Kirk to snap the ball, but Kirk never sees him and the Bengals finally call a timeout to bail them out?  

Had the ball snapped, the refs would have been forced to call a to many men on the field as they were 12 guys in the D. That was this play and that's why they called a TO, not because of Garcon. That penalty would also have given us a first down btw. 

Kirk is not used to do this right now, I believe he's still learning and in the process of going through his reads presnap. In a few he might be able to read faster and spend 'some time' counting guys on the D.

[Veryoldschool]

Kirk's a top 10-15 QB and I think he will continue to perform well.  I expect he'll receive a franchise QB 5 year deal at the end of the season because the long hunt is over we have our QB for a decade.

[Tsailand]

4 hours ago, Wildbunny said:

Had the ball snapped, the refs would have been forced to call a to many men on the field as they were 12 guys in the D

It would be a free play; worst case scenario we get the five yards, best case Garcon goes for the TD.

[justice98]

13 hours ago, campbellcooleyconnection said:

He just is missing that thing that the Brady,Rogers , Brees etc all have which is awareness.Like someone said when Bungles had 12 men snap the ball, missing/not seeing wide open guys,clock management, throwing Hail Mary passes out of bounds etc.

Maybe he'll get that when he has another 100-200 starts under his belt like those guys.  Even Rodgers who sat for 3 years, had about 30 more starts at the same age as Cousins now.  Wily vet moves usually come one way, from experience.  Maybe a guy comes in with a knack for being crafty, but those guys are rare, IMO.

But I think one thing Kirk never had the benefit of was having an old vet to learn from or watch up close day in and day out.  Brady had Bledsoe, Rodgers had Favre, even Brees had Doug Flutie as a young player.  Kirk has had RG3 and Colt McCoy his entire career.  

[Morrison J]

No reason he doesn't finish this season like he finished the last  I thought he was brilliant yesterday. Clearly hitting his stride and with better weapons and protection compared to last year I'd think he'll take off just like last year and lead us to a wildcard berth at worst. 

 

[TheGreek1973]

I can't wait to see him and this O play against the Vikings.  They are the D everyone is raving about and if we can play well against them after a bye then he can play well against anyone.  This will finally be a game that our O can win with our D playing average since the Vikings offense is really average.

[Warhead36]

Kirks still a bit of a thinker instead of an instinctual playmaker, at least at times. But, that's something you develop with experience.

I mean we're nitpitcking a guy who put up 400 yards, who for two weeks in a row rallied this team from 10 point deficits in the 2nd half to give us the lead late. If the D and Hopkins don't gag we're 6-2 and Cousins is in Brady territory with his clutch play.

[JSSkinz]

14 hours ago, NoCalMike said:

(This one is more of a continue to do this, since he seems to have started doing it more the past couple of games) When the secondary is covering everyone, and you have wide open field in front of you with no defender in sight, tuck that ball and run. You aren't Kirk "Lightning" Cousins out there, however you aren't a statue either. Make the defense pay for clearing out the middle of the field to take away a potential big pass play. Get your easy 10 yards and go for a slide.

 

He didn't do it yesterday and he had some chances late in the game, its being nit picky but those QB runs on broken plays are backbreakers for the defense, it's very tough for the defense to stop it.