Cousins was put under the microscope from the first game of the season until the last. The first half of the season wasn’t particularly strong, leading to speculation that he could be benched at the bye week if he played poorly against the Buccaneers. After a disastrous first half, Cousins put the team on his back and carried them to a triumphant comeback to win the game, 31-30. That game sparked the now-famous “You like that!” moment and became the catalyst for a season revival. Washington went on to win six of its last nine games, including four in a row to end the season as NFC East champions.

The above play comes from back in Week 1 against the Dolphins. Cousins looks to hit wide receiver Pierre Garcon on a corner route.

But almost from the moment he secures the snap, Cousins looks straight to Garcon, never looking to any other target or attempting to hide where he wants to go with the ball.

By staring down Garcon, Cousins effectively tells the defensive back exactly who he wants to throw to. As soon as Cousins begins his throwing motion, the defensive back breaks on the route, before Garcon has even fully started his cut to the corner.

That allows the defender to be in a great position to compete for the jump ball with Garcon. The defender does a great job reaching over Garcon and pulling in an outstanding one-handed interception. The defender was in position to make a play because Cousins stared down Garcon.

But by the end of the season, Cousins hadn’t only fixed the problem, he began to turn it into a strength. Instead of staring down targets, he was looking off safeties, sending them the wrong way or holding them in the middle of the field.

Here in Week 16, Garcon and running back Chris Thompson line up outside to the right. Garcon runs a corner route while Thompson runs a slant underneath.

The Eagles play cover-one robber, a man coverage with a single deep safety in the middle of the field. This scheme also uses an extra defender, the robber, to sit in the middle of the field underneath the deep safety. Both the robber and the deep safety read Cousins and react to where he looks. The corner route from Garcon vacates space for Thompson underneath, but Cousins can’t afford to show his intentions yet. If he stares down Thompson, he’ll lead the robber straight to that route. Cousins does an excellent job keeping his eyes down the middle of the field, not giving the robber or the deep safety any indication of where he’s going.

With the robber frozen in the middle of the field, Cousins waits for Thompson to come open. As soon as Garcon vacates the space, Cousins quickly delivers the throw.

Cousins hits Thompson in between defenders for the touchdown. But it could have been a lot different. If this play had come earlier in the season, Cousins may have led the robber straight to the throw. But using his eyes to manipulate coverage has become a skill for Cousins, who clearly developed in this aspect over the course of the season.

Cousins also had problems early in the season with his mechanics. He was often overstriding when stepping into throws and falling away from throws when under pressure.

On this play, Cousins has time to set himself and find Ryan Grant on a dig route over the middle. But Cousins overstrides as he steps into his throw, making it hard for him to transfer his weight over his front foot correctly.

As a result, Cousins has to counter balance the over striding with an extravagant leg flick to generate velocity on the throw. The ball falls behind Grant, who couldn’t adjust back to make the catch.

When opposing defenses brought pressure, Cousins failed to step into his throws. He would fall away from his throws.

Here, the Falcons run a stunt that causes a defender to get a free rush off the edge. Cousins anticipates the pressure and falls away from the throw to avoid the hit, instead of fully stepping into it.

That causes the ball to get away from Cousins and sail above a fully stretched Garcon on what should have been a touchdown.

But as the season progressed, Cousins showed improved mechanics, particularly his footwork.

This time, Cousins is looking to hit tight end Jordan Reed over the middle. But as Cousins reaches the top of his drop, pressure arrives from his right.

Instead of falling away from the throw while under pressure, Cousins calmly steps up in the pocket to avoid the rush and delivers a mechanically sound throw just before he’s hit from behind.

The throw hits Reed in stride between three defenders, allowing him to pick up extra yards after the catch.

Here’s another, more subtle example.

Morgan Moses struggles off the snap with a speed rush. To help his right tackle, Cousins takes a subtle step up in the pocket and resets his feet before quickly getting rid of the ball.

Cousins finds Reed, again giving him the chance to pick up extra yards after the catch.

Another aspect of Cousins’s game that improved over the course of the season was his command of the offense and his confidence within it. At the start of the season, Cousins was capable of running the offense, but he rarely made drastic changes to play calls at the line of scrimmage. As Cousins became more comfortable and confident, Washington seemed to open up the playbook and give him more responsibility. He began to go off script when he saw opportunities to do so.

Here, Cousins spots DeSean Jackson isolated one-on-one with Buffalo’s Leodis McKelvin. McKelvin lines up 10 yards away from Jackson, giving him plenty of cushion to respect his deep threat. Having spotted that cushion, Cousins makes a call at the line of scrimmage and gives Jackson a signal.

Cousins takes the snap and immediately throws the ball out to Jackson, who jukes McKelvin on his way to the edge.

Jackson makes a solid gain up the sideline before McKelvin can recover and push him out of bounds. It appears to be a simple play, but it’s the type of audible that only a select few quarterbacks actually make. It’s something Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers do regularly to help pick up easy yards when the running game is struggling.

In that same game, Cousins appeared to go off script on a touchdown pass to Reed.

Washington lines up in its run-heavy personnel with three tight ends and one wide receiver. But Reed, a tight end, splits out wide, forcing safety Bacarri Rambo to follow him in one-on-one coverage. Cousins shows Reed a quick hand signal, telling him to run a fade route.

As the ball is snapped, the offensive line and running back appear to execute a run play. But Cousins takes a one step drop and quickly throws to Reed.

The ball is slightly underthrown, but it has enough air under it to allow Reed to jump over Rambo and secure the touchdown pass.

While he has gained the confidence and command to make audibles at the line of scrimmage, Cousins has also displayed what made him an attractive option to Gruden in the first place. I’ve seen many criticize Cousins for being a one-read quarterback who struggles to find anyone but a check-down target after his first read. But on this next play, he shows he’s perfectly capable of progressing through multiple reads.

This is a timing play that is designed to be read from left to right. Cousins starts his read with the quick out and the flat route combination.

Cousins reads Garcon on the quick out route. The outside corner is playing off the line of scrimmage and working towards the sideline. That puts him in a position to jump the out route from Garcon, so Cousins moves on to his next read.

Cousins works to the middle of the field for Jamison Crowder on a spot route. Crowder’s job is to find a hole in the zone coverage to sit down in, so Cousins could have potentially stayed on him and waited for him to get open.

However, the play is all about timing. At the time Cousins reads Crowder, he still has to cross behind a linebacker in zone coverage, who could still step inside and take away the throw. Cousins knows he has Jackson on a stop route on the back side, which he has to throw on time to maximize the separation. So instead of waiting for Crowder’s route to potentially come open, Cousins moves on to his third read.

Cousins’s third read matches up with the timing of Jackson’s route. As Cousins releases the ball, Jackson breaks back towards it. Jackson makes the catch and picks up a solid gain. It’s another play that might seem simple, but a lot went into it. Cousins went through three reads in a matter of seconds and got rid of the ball on time to his third read for a positive gain.

By the end of the season, Cousins solidified himself as Washington’s best quarterback, proving Gruden made the correct move at the start of the season. Entering the offseason, Washington has made clear its intentions to re-sign the impending free agent quarterback, with reports suggesting the franchise tag will be used if no long term contract can be agreed upon. But many fans are still apprehensive of Cousins being the quarterback of the future. There are many legitimate questions still to be answered by Cousins before I’m ready to call him a franchise quarterback. But up until this point, he’s passed just about every hurdle he’s been presented with this season.

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Initially, the question was could he cut down on the interceptions. While he threw eight interceptions in the first seven games, he only threw three in the last nine. That improvement came from better mechanics and manipulating defenders with his eyes. Many fans then wondered if he was capable of putting the team on his shoulders and carrying them to a win. With the season on the line after Gruden issued a code red, Cousins did exactly that against the Buccaneers. He also led the team to a win in the fourth quarter against Philadelphia and put together a three-play, 46-yard drive with 24 seconds left to set up a field goal to send the game against the Falcons to overtime. Fans then complained he hadn’t won a game on the road or won back-to-back games, but he squashed that complaint by winning the last four games in a row, three on the road.

The biggest concern over Cousins now is his ability to beat ‘good’ teams. While it’s true Washington didn’t beat anyone with a winning record, the Redskins prevented three teams from having one. They swept the Eagles, who finished 7-9. Had the Eagles won those two games, they’d have been 7-9. Similarly, the Redskins beat the Rams and the Bills, who both finished 8-8.

It’s an argument that holds little weight, in my opinion. The criticism is aimed at Cousins, but the record is reflection of the whole team. Trent Williams, Bashaud Breeland, Jordan Reed and Ryan Kerrigan aren’t subjected to the same criticism, despite the fact they are all part of the same team. On top of that, Washington only played three teams that finished with winning records. Two were the Patriots and Panthers, who finished with a combined record of 27-5 and are each in conference championship games this weekend.

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With Cousins under center, Washington found a formula for success. He improved drastically as the season went on and there’s no reason to believe he can’t continue to improve with an entire offseason taking the repetitions as the number one quarterback. He does still have to work on his game, but his position as the starting quarterback shouldn’t be under scrutiny. With another offseason in the offense and with the chance to surround him with more weapons and a better running game, Cousins should be in position to take a step forward next season, despite facing a more difficult first-place schedule.

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