Cousins hot, Rodgers not
LANDOVER, Md. — Aaron Rodgers has been a Super Bowl champion and a two-time NFL MVP. He owns the best passer rating in league history. His Green Bay Packers are in the playoffs for the seventh consecutive season.
Kirk Cousins started a grand total of nine regular-season games entering this season, wasn’t chosen as Washington’s QB until a couple of weeks before the opener, and his only postseason experience to date consists of 10 passes as a backup in a loss three years ago.
Look at each of them now, though.
Heading into Sunday’s playoff matchup between the wild-card Packers (10-6) and NFC East champion Redskins (9-7), Rodgers struggled through a poor-by-his-lofty-standards season, certainly hurt by the absence of top receiver Jordy Nelson, and his team won only four of its last 10 games. Cousins, meanwhile, soared, breaking team passing records and setting a league mark for completion percentage at home while leading Washington to four victories in a row down the stretch.
Fans attending the game will be given white towels with burgundy lettering that pay tribute to Cousins’ catch phrase: “You like that?!”
And get this, given their comparative careers to date: An actual topic of debate in the D.C. area this week was which of the two QBs would be the player you’d want for the next five years.
As for the Redskins players themselves, they express nothing but confidence in Cousins, who replaced Robert Griffin III as the starter late in the preseason, but they’re not exactly disparaging Rodgers in any way.
“He’s still got 31 touchdowns — how can you say he’s not really having a good year? He’s still got the intangibles of an elite QB,” Washington cornerback Bashaud Breeland said. “Sometimes his supporting cast is not there to bail him out, but I feel like he’s one of those guys you’ve got to be on your toes with, every play.”