To the shock of few, before Sunday, Washington Redskins’ quarterback Kirk Cousins had never thrown for more than three touchdowns in a game during his NFL career. Even more shocking, this season, Cousins hadn’t completed a touchdown pass of more than seven yards.
Thankfully, his team’s Week 10 matchup against the dreadful pass defense of the New Orleans Saints would allow for plenty of personal records to be set with, for starters, both of the aforementioned rather handily taking place.
Though Cousins has struggled throughout the course of his NFL career as a backup quarterback behind Robert Griffin III, in Sunday’s fixture, Cousins managed to throw for a career-high four touchdown passes on 20 for 25 passes and an extremely impressive passer rating of 158.3 to lead his team to a 47-14 pummeling of Drew Brees and the Saints.
Said Cousins per Yahoo.com of his breakout performance, “'I'm getting better as a quarterback. When you're in the zone and things are going really well, you're just playing and your mind is free and you're not allowing things to inhibit your play.’'
Clearly, any quarterback who’s just racked up 325 yards of total offense and zero interceptions is going to be glowing with confidence. Sure, Cousins played well, but his teammates also were able to get in on the action.
Running back Matt Jones benefited from Cousins stellar skill and scored on a 78-yard pass play. Then, Redskins’ tight end Jordan Reed was able to connect with Cousins for 18- and 8-yard touchdown passes. Finally, wrapping up the day, wideout Jamison Crowder nabbed a touchdown pass from 11 yards out to solidify his stat sheet just a bit.
While Cousins might’ve had a career day yesterday, the Saints’ Drew Brees had anything but, ending the game having gone a pedestrian 19 for 28 for 201 yards and a pair of touchdown passes and interceptions.
The poor play from Brees was most unusual, seeing as how he was coming off of a two-week stretch in which he’d accounted for 10 total touchdowns and nearly 900 yards of offense.
Needless to say, both quarterbacks appeared to have outlying performances during Week 10. Until further notice, fantasy owners shouldn’t expect something similar from them in the coming weeks.