You like Dak? Cowboys put Washington and Kirk Cousins in an 0-2 hole
This offseason, the Washington Redskins gave quarterback Kirk Cousins the franchise tag, worth about $19.95 million. The Dallas Cowboys drafted Dak Prescott at the end of the fourth round, and he’ll make a $450,000 base salary this year.
Prescott wasn’t the one who made an enormous mistake to cost his team Sunday’s game.
There should be a little bit of panic in Washington over the defending NFC East champions. Two home games to start the season have resulted in an 0-2 record, after the Cowboys and Prescott came in and won 27-20.
The play that turned the game around was a big mistake by the guy who makes almost $20 million, not the rookie.
Cousins, who looked like a new quarterback in the second half of last season when he went on a hot streak and cut way down on his interceptions, threw a terrible pick with the Redskins holding a fourth-quarter lead. He fired one into the end zone right to Cowboys safety Barry Church. It was an awful play with the Redskins looking to add to their 23-20 lead.
The Cowboys scored on the next drive. Prescott made a great pass on third-and-11, hitting Cole Beasley to extend the drive. Former Redskins running back Alfred Morris scored the go-ahead touchdown. Prescott was impressive, going 22-of-30 for 292 yards. He also ran for a touchdown.
Washington had two more shots to win it after Morris’ score. Cousins threw incomplete on a fourth-and-1. After the defense held and forced a punt, Washington took over deep in its territory with less than two minutes left and no timeouts. A long catch by Chris Thompson got the Redskins out to about midfield. But the Redskins didn’t have enough time to put together a scoring drive and a Hail Mary attempt to the end zone went incomplete.
Washington looked awful on Monday night against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Given how rare it is for teams to make the playoffs after an 0-2 start — about 12 percent make it after beginning 0-2 — there was a lot of importance for a Week 2 game in Washington. Dallas lost in Week 1 too. And now the Redskins are in a fairly deep hole to start the season. Cousins had chances to win and couldn’t, and his bad interception was shades of the mistake-prone quarterback we saw early in his career.
The season is obviously not over for the Redskins, especially not in the NFC East. But this is a high-pressure year for Cousins, on that one-year franchise tag, and it hasn’t started all that well.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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