Kirk Cousins

In Thursday night’s debacle against the New York Giants, Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins reverted to the turnover-prone form that he displayed in limited action during the first two seasons of his career.

Cousins posted a career-worst five turnovers (four interceptions, one fumble lost) while throwing for just one touchdown. In 11 game appearances since his rookie year in 2012 – six of them starts – Cousins has recorded 15 interceptions and three lost fumbles to go with 14 touchdown passes. He has thrown multiple interceptions in four of those games.

Redskins coach Jay Gruden called Cousins’ penchant for turning the ball over worrisome, but said the young quarterback was hardly the sole problem in Thursday’s game.

“It’s worrisome, [but] you have to take the game for what it is. We lost the game, he didn’t play very well, he threw four picks, we understand that, and a fumble, but he didn’t have a lot of help, either,” Gruden said. “There weren’t a lot of people – the defense didn’t help him out, the offensive line didn’t help him out, the receivers didn’t help him out. There’s a lot of other factors that we could have had better game, a better outing, if other people were helping more. It’s not just Kirk. Kirk, his mistakes are magnified obviously, but there are other guys who had mistakes that were equally important and devastating to the football game. We just have to continue to work to get better, and we will, but we’re not going to hold Kirk’s head under the water right now. We’re going to keep him composed and getting better, and he’s going to be fine next week.”

Cousins lit up the Eagles defense but coming into a short week had completely different results against an equally bad Giants defense. Things don't get much easier in terms of matchups outside of the Cowboys in Week 8 - the Skins will face four top-half defenses in terms of allowing fantasy points to QBs: Seahawks Week 5, Cardinals Week 6, Titans Week 7 and Vikings Week 9 leading up to the Week 10 bye.