Jay Gruden’s loyalty to Kirk Cousins is costing Washington wins

Jay Gruden’s continued support for Kirk Cousins -- from naming him the starter at the beginning of the season after a very poor 2014 campaign and doggedly sticking with him after Washington’s 2-4 start -- is baffling.

Cousins has already thrown eight interceptions in six starts this season, including two terrible throws last Sunday in a losing effort to the Jets. His status as the starter has been a hot button topic this week in D.C. Some believe Washington needs to make a change. Others believe that the team simply does not possess a better option -- it’s not like Colt McCoy’s track record is sterling and Robert Griffin III has looked like a shell of the former player that lit the league up in 2012.

There are others still who believe that even if Griffin were a marginally better option, the team does not want to risk putting Griffin on the field, as his $16.2 million option in 2016 is guaranteed for injury only (begging the question why Washington picked up his option in the first place). Joe Theismann recently said that despite what may looks like terrible play from Cousins, the team needs to “stay the course.” And Gruden still believes that Cousins gives Washington “the best chance to win.”

Who is right in all this? Well, it’s pretty tough to know how either McCoy or Griffin would look in this Washington offense, but it’s worth taking a deeper look at how Cousins has played so far. First up, let’s look at the stats.

Traditional stats

When you take a look at some of the traditional stats for Cousins’ season, there are some good things and some really, really bad things.

First off, his 66.2 percent completion rate is a big jump up from last season’s 61.8 percent mark, and his interception rate (interceptions per pass attempt) has actually dropped pretty significantly. His 1,420 passing yards is 16th in the NFL, right behind Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson.

However, a 3.5 percent interception rate ain’t all that great, by any stretch. He was the only quarterback to throw eight picks on 230 or fewer attempts in 2014. He and Sam Bradford are the only two to hold that dubious distinction this season as well.

The other issue here is that Cousins’ touchdown percentage is way lower than last year’s rate too -- and on 24 more attempts in 2015 he has four fewer touchdown throws. The big plays aren’t showing up.

(Via Pro Football Reference)

Past that, his yards per game is down (285 per game in 2014, 236 per game in 2015) and his quarterback rating is down (86.4 in ‘14 to 77.4 in ‘15). The total yardage thing is a bit misleading -- his yards per attempt is way down (8.4 yards per attempt in 2014, which is actually a pretty good number, to 6.2 yards per attempt in 2015, which is not good).

His raw traditional stats don’t completely scream “cut his ass immediately,” but they’re also not going to inspire much confidence either.

You can get tricked a little bit by those traditional stats. You could tell yourself, “Oh, he just needs to take care of the football a little bit better, get his picks down and get his yards per attempt creeping back up to where they were in 2014. He’ll adapt.”

Well, the splits tell a much better (worse) story about what kind of quarterback Cousins has been this year.

(*Via ESPN.com)

Here’s what you need to glean from this: Cousins does not push the ball downfield with any accuracy. Of his 228 pass attempts, 19 have traveled more than 20 yards in the air. He’s completed just three of those. This scatter chart by Cian Fahey of Bleacher Report does a great job of illustrating this.

Even bringing it in a little bit on more intermediate passes -- those thrown between 10-20 yards -- he’s only completing 53 percent of his passes and has thrown three picks on those 34 passes.

The vast majority of Cousins’ passes -- and really the only range that he has any success at -- come behind the line of scrimmage or within 10 yards. There’s a few pretty clear implications here: 1) his arm is not good, and 2) his coaches know this. He’s attempted the eighth most passes of any quarterback in the NFL this year, and it’s mostly all just short stuff.

For a high-volume passing offense, the inability to throw the ball downfield really restricts what you can do and also can mean defenses play closer to the line of scrimmage, which can affect your run game. Washington is 23rd in yards per carry (3.9).

Where Cousins has actually been pretty solid is in the red zone, which is obviously a pretty key area.

Washington ranks 17th in the NFL in red zone percentage (scoring touchdowns 56 percent of the time -- up 6 percent from last year). His rating in the middle areas of the field has been pretty bad; he has cleaned up his game a ton inside opponents’ 20-yard line. Importantly, he hasn’t turned the ball over in the red zone. All six of his touchdown passes have come inside the opponents’ 10-yard line.

The advanced stats can throw you for a bit of a loop though, and may point to why Gruden has stuck with his starter this long and shows no signs of changing now.

Per Football Outsiders:

DYAR, or Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement, per FO, gives the value of the quarterback’s performance compared to replacement level, adjusted for situation and opponent and then translated into yardage. DVOA, or Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, represents value, per play, over an average quarterback in the same game situations. In other words, DYAR means a quarterback with more total value, while DVOA means a quarterback with more value per play.

Surprisingly, Cousins has a DYAR of 260, ranked ninth in the NFL, and his DVOA of 5.90 percent ranks 11th in the NFL. The takeaway here is that Cousins has been a quarterback with top-10 total value and sits just outside the top-10 in value per play. This may be due in part to how often he’s asked to throw (eighth in total passes), his pass completion rate and his excellent red zone numbers.

ESPN’s QBR metric isn’t quite as kind to Cousins though, and rates him a 54.2, 22nd in the NFL.

Pro Football Focus was rough on him this week too, putting Cousins into their “Worst Players at Every Position” column at quarterback after the Jets loss, noting that:

“Cousins completed just 58.1 percent of his passes, with the number dropping to 40 percent when he was under any kind of pressure. On passes that traveled more than 10 yards in the air, he was a dreadful 3-for-12 for 46 yards and an interception. His 4.6 yards per attempt was the lowest mark among all QBs this week.”

To me, on the eye test -- my eyes, anyway -- Cousins is clearly a pretty limited quarterback. He rarely attacks defenses downfield, and when he does, it’s often very inaccurate. He hasn’t looked good under pressure. At times, it looks like he doesn’t see defenders when he decides to make throws.

The offense has had to be adapted to his lack of arm strength and velocity, sort of similar to what Denver’s going through right now with Peyton Manning, except in Cousins’ case, he doesn’t have Manning’s famous ability to diagnose and dissect a defense based on alignments and personnel.

Both quarterbacks have had one major issue this year: way, way too many turnovers. Cousins has been described by many as a game manager, but game managers don’t lose their teams games. Throwing eight picks in six games has lost Washington football games.

Jay Gruden has said that he’s seen Cousins make all the throws an NFL quarterback has to make, but I cringe when I see him throw anything short to the sideline or anything deep. The velocity just isn’t good.

At the end of the day, Cousins has done some things well, but he’s also made some major mistakes. If it were me, I’d probably be making the change this week, to either McCoy or Griffin. I’m not high on either player but when it comes to throwing the vast majority of your passes within 10 yards, couldn’t either of those guys do this while turning the ball over a little less? It seems plausible at least.

For whatever reason, itself a sub category of Washington’s usual dysfunction, Cousins has had a long leash this year. How long will he have that? It’s tough to tell, but I think one thing is clear: Cousins has to cut down on his turnovers, or else Gruden may have no choice but to see what McCoy or Griffin can do. Maybe.

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