Kirk Cousins vs. Dolphins - 21/31, 196 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT

Play 6 - 2-4-MIA 4(Q2-2:00) 8-K.Cousins pass incomplete short right to 14-R.Grant.

This is one of the most infuriating plays to me outside of his first interception which I covered above. The play call is bootleg flood to the right And Cousins had Jordan Reed on a quick out open for a touchdown. Then Cousins throws the ball out of the back of the endzone. He easily had an additional 2-3 seconds before a defender was near him so he could have held onto it and thrown it to wide receiver #14 Ryan Grant over the middle of the endzone for the score breaking out of his out route. Two missed opportunities.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this play. It’s a simple fade route to Jordan Reed on the left side of the endzone. It’s a quick-decision play where Cousins was confident his receiver could beat the defender to the sideline and in a jump ball opportunity. He was correct, and it certainly didn’t hurt that the defender tripped in coverage giving Reed the uncontested catch.

By the fourth quarter with 9:48 left in the game, the Redskins just surrendered a punt return touchdown. Unfortunately for Cousins and the offense, Tress Way outkicked his coverage and gave Jarvis Landry a great scoring opportunity in which he took advantage of to put the Dolphins ahead of the Redskins 17-10. The Redskins had opportunities to create big plays, but couldn’t capitalize on them like in this play.

Cousins runs play-action to running back #46 Alfred Morris to set up a deep shot downfield. Garcon from the left runs a deep go-route taking the deep single-high safety coverage with him opening up the deep crossing route for Roberts. Cousins sees the play unfold and places the ball behind Roberts who (actually) catches it, but can’t capitalize on the yards-after-catch which he would have easily been able to if this ball was on target. It’s possible the defender who is diving at Cousins’ feet screwed up his throwing motion, but it looks like Cousins just misplaced the ball.

Cousins is in shotgun trips left far with Alfred Morris in the backfield with him. The Dolphins bring four pass rushers and drop a single-high safety deep into coverage over the field. Jordan Reed runs a deep corner route from the right side of the offensive line, which Cousins targets immediately. This draws the safety to attack the route after Cousins releases the football from the pocket. Reed wanted a pass interference call, but if you watch the play closely it was perfectly covered by safety #20 Reshad Jones who is credited with the pass breakup.

The major issue here isn’t the good coverage by Jones. It’s the fact that immediately after the snap Cousins stares down his receiver from the beginning and should have moved on to wide receiver #14 Ryan Grant getting separation on his in-route from the left side of the formation instead of forcing the pass deep here.

This is the final play we will look at today and it’s the second interception Cousins threw on Sunday.

The Redskins are in shotgun twin stack left far featuring wide receivers #88 Pierre Garcon on the line of scrimmage and #12 Andre Roberts behind him. The Dolphins are in Cover 1 again playing man-to-man coverage across the field. After the snap the Dolphins bring five pass rushers. Garcon runs a corner route which he flattens in an attempt to gain separation. Cousins places the ball on the sideline hoping Garcon can win his matchup, but McCain makes an incredible one handed tip-catch to himself and pulls it in before sliding out-of-bounds. Give major credit to McCain here.

Situationally, it was 3rd and long, so you can’t blame Cousins for attempting this pass as none of the other designed routes were past the first down marker. Additionally, even if this is an incompletion the Redskins are still in field goal range, so the only major mistake to be made here would be to take a sack and not give the Redskins ANY opportunity to put points on the board.

Looking at the placement of Cousins’ pass, it could have been 1-1.5 yards further outside on the sideline to avoid McCain’s coverage, but to say the decision or the throw was REALLY Cousins’ fault would be wrong in my opinion.

The Redskins had chances to win the game, but penalties (11 total), a hamstring injury to DeSean Jackson, missed interception opportunity by Chris Culliver, and a major special teams blunder stopped the Redskins from collecting the “W” last Sunday. Cousins was not perfect. He definitely made some mistakes, but overall he performed well in Jay Gruden’s quick-concept offense. All he needs now is more time to develop in game-time situations.

Follow Samuel Gold on Twitter: @SamuelRGold.