Looks Like Someone Has a Sixpack of the Mondays—Kirk Cousins NEEDS to Stay

1. Happy New Year! We’ll keep this one short today, as hangovers and college football rule this day. (Also, overreactions to one loss reign supreme in this day.)
2. Because I did think that game yesterday against the Giants mattered, I am here to say that watching the Redskins lose it sucked out loud. I was not emotionally detached from the outcome of the game, and I won’t pretend to suggest that I am somehow comforted by our resulting draft position. I’m not. That loss was terrible and there were plenty of images from that game that will live for an entire offseason in my mind.
3. My biggest fear about the loss yesterday is that it will somehow provide Dan Snyder and Bruce Allen with an excuse to make foolish changes. You might ask what kind of foolish changes? Take your pick. We’ll be all over this as we move forward in the next few weeks. I have spent plenty of time making it clear that Kirk should stay.
4. We will have a lot of time to break down all the different facets of the upcoming Redskins offseason. While that one game would have provided a much-needed win in the “W” column, it did NOT change what Kirk Cousins and Jay Gruden have accomplished over the last three years. The team is still a whisker above 0.500 over that span, and if I am not mistaken, Kirk Cousins is still behind only Tom Brady and Drew Brees in QBR over that time. (That was a stat flashed in the first half of yesterday’s game. I suppose the math could have gone against Kirk after that performance, but it still resonates that he has performed over that span.)
5. There is a huge argument raging—that will continue to rage—about whether Kirk Cousins is “elite.” I generally hate these kinds of arguments, as there is a legitimate amount of subjectivity involved. Still, shouldn’t we begin by having an agreed notion about what “elite” means? Isn’t there some relativity built in to the word “elite” when using it to define a player who plays a position that 31 other guys play? I mean, shouldn’t the overall performance at the position right now dictate what should be considered “elite?” You can bring in individual performances like the one yesterday that, because they do contribute to the overall picture, but if you think that Kirk’s stinker against the Giants changes the player he has become and continues to improve over, I think you are dead wrong.
6. Every writer on this site is entitled to his or her own opinion, as are all the fans who come here and engage in the debate. We welcome the fire and passion, but can we please not let the coming decisions tear us apart? Despite the loss yesterday, the fact remains that this Redskins team has benefited from a little bit of stability on the sideline and under center. I think we need to keep that going and continue to improve around the edges. That will be the thrust of most of my pieces about the offseason moves on the way, and will frame up our debate on the second season of “Offseason On the Brink,” our soon-to-be-awarded Redskins offseason show. We’ll be on Facebook Live somewhere around 9 PM (ish) on Tuesday nights this offseason. This week, our season finale of “After the Whistle” comes at you as we do have one last game to cover.

(promise to keep it short KEPT)