The Ravens have safety Eric Weddle walked up close to the line of scrimmage, but he quickly drops back to fill out an otherwise basic cover-two look.

Cousins looks for tight end Jordan Reed, running an in-breaking route behind the underneath zone defenders. Cousins appears to lock in on Reed from the snap and stares him down the whole way. Once Reed cuts across the face of one zone defender, Cousins pulls the trigger. However, he doesn’t realize that the middle linebacker, Mosley, is in the middle of the field and jumps the route. He makes a fantastic leap to pull in the interception.

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“I just saw a two-deep shell. I saw a zone coverage.” Cousins explained to reporters after the game. “Felt Jordan (Reed) breaking in behind the zone defenders. You know, obviously in hindsight, didn’t need to throw it over them. Could have put it on the shallow cross coming underneath them. That’s where, you know, when you play zone coverage, those linebackers can do a really good job of just continuing to sink and he made a great play. But obviously, I can go somewhere else with the football.”

The linebackers did do a good job of sinking, but that is what they’re meant to do in zone coverage. It was a great catch by the linebacker, but Cousins was trying to fit it into a window that wasn’t there. If this was a one-off, it wouldn’t be too much of a concern. The problem for Cousins is that this is the third time this season he’s been intercepted by an underneath zone defender sinking back. The first one came back in Week 1 against the Steelers:

The Steelers play another basic coverage, cover-three, on this play. Reed is again the target on a crossing route.

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The play is alarmingly similar to Cousins’s interception against the Ravens. He appears to lock on to Reed early. The linebacker follows Cousins’s eyes, sinking deeper into his zone before leaping to make the interception in front of Reed.

These are interceptions that Cousins cannot afford to make. The coverages are simple, basic zone coverages that he’s seen hundreds of times before. If he’s failing to avoid interceptions to sinking zone defenders against those types of coverages, then he’s likely to struggle against muddier coverages that aren’t quite so clear. That was the case against the Browns.

Here, Cousins looks to hit slot receiver Jamison Crowder on a corner route, but the Browns have their slot cornerback sinking in a zone coverage.

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With the use of play-action, I can’t say for sure exactly what coverage the Browns are running. Some defenders bite up on the fake, while others don’t. But the key to focus on is Cousins appearing to lock on to Crowder, while the slot corner peels off his receiver and sinks into his zone. As Crowder cuts to the outside, the corner sinks deeper in his zone and plays the ball, making the interception in front of Crowder.

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“The defensive back made a very good play, he’s a zoning defender in that curl-flat area and he sunk off and made the play.” Cousins said after that game. “If you go back and see the film you can see as a result, that Matt Jones, as a result of him sinking, Matt Jones was open in the flat and so that’s in hindsight where the ball would have been able to go and probably get a productive gain and so that slipped out and I’ll take from that.”

Cousins explained how he’ll learn from the mistake, but it still appeared in his game a few weeks later. It appears that Cousins is either not seeing these underneath zone defenders sinking to take away the intermediate routes, or he thinks he can fit the ball in a non-existent throwing window.

I wanted to see if this was something new for Cousins, or if it’s been a problem for him for a while. So I went back to last season and checked his interceptions. During his strong run of performances down the stretch, Cousins only threw a couple of interceptions. But his last one of the 2015 season had a few familiar traits.

Against the Bears, Washington lines up wide receiver Pierre Garcon tight to the formation. That allows him space to run a corner route outside the numbers. The cornerback lined up over Garcon is in zone coverage.

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Cousins executes his play-action fake before locking on to Garcon. The corner follows Cousins’s eyes, sinking in his zone. As Garcon cuts outside, Cousins delivers the throw. But before the ball can reach Garcon, the corner sinks back and intercepts the pass in front of him.

Cousins has yet to prove he can consistently burn teams deep despite having receivers running open, so throwing interceptions to sinking zone defenders on intermediate routes is a huge burden on the offense. Four interceptions with similar traits is a problem for Cousins and one that he needs to correct in a hurry. Defensive coordinators catch on quickly in the NFL and will look to exploit the issue if Cousins can’t correct it.

Mark Bullock is The Insider’s Outsider, sharing his Redskins impressions without the benefit of access to the team. For more, click here.