In all of the unanswerable questions about life and the universe, one that has plagued Washington Football Team fans for some time is this one: “Why did Kirk Cousins take a knee with no timeouts at the end of the half in Philadelphia?”
The situation on Dec. 26, 2015: With the clock stopped and six seconds left, Washington was up 16-10 with the ball on the Eagles' six-yard line. And then Cousins (allegedly) had the footballing brain-fart of the century.
So why did this happen? According to former Washington head coach Jay Gruden, this monumental screw-up wasn’t a mistake by his quarterback, but by a pair of wide receivers.
“That wasn’t his fault, now,” Gruden told The Team 980’s Kevin Sheehan on his podcast over the weekend.
“That was Pierre (Garçon’s) and DeSean (Jackson’s) fault. And so, Kirk took a lot of heat for that. That was all on – I can finally say it – that was all on Pierre and DeSean,” Gruden said. “They were two peas in a pod, now.”
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In Gruden’s version of events, the wide receivers refused to run the play that was called in the huddle and hung Cousins out to dry.
“So, we had time for just a back-shoulder fade, incomplete or incomplete, and then just kick the field goal,” Gruden told Sheehan. “Well, I want to run (the clock) down and take a shot at a touchdown, what the heck?”
The only problem was Garçon “hated back-shoulder fades” and was very particular about how the ball should be thrown to him. According to Gruden, Garçon said, “if you call a fade and I’m runnin a fade, the ball should be 42 yards over my outside shoulder and that’s the way Peyton Manning threw it and that’s the way I want them.”
And earlier in the game, Cousins failed to connect on a back-shoulder route that was “incomplete horribly out of bounds.”
So with six seconds left in the half, the call “All Go X venus” a back-shoulder play.
“Pierre (says) I’m not runnin it, he hates them,” Gruden told Sheehan. “So, he stood there like three yards from the tackle in his stance like he’s not gonna run it, and then DeSean is standing there like ‘just kick the field goal.’
“And then Kirk just panicked; he had nothing to do. He took a knee and that was the end of the half.”
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In Gruden’s eyes, Cousins panicking was understandable: His teammates' refusal to run the play that was called was the unforgivable mistake.
“I’ve never seen a receiver actually turn down an opportunity to score a touchdown, which is what happened on that play. Unbelievable,” he told Sheehan. “Kirk took a lot of heat for that, I took a lot of heat for that. But really, Pierre and DeSean, if one of them had just run a route we could have at least thrown it into the ground and kicked a field goal.”
Some suggested Cousins should have spiked the ball when he snapped it after realizing the bad alignment, however, since the clock was not running at the snap, Cousins would have been penalized for intentional grounding.
“We had a fun time in the locker room on that one,” Gruden said sardonically.
“I always told people that halftime I earned my entire Washington Football Team salary in one halftime trying to get everyone calmed down and ready for the second half.”
Of course, Washington would go on to win the game 38-24 and clinch the NFC East that night, so it is generally water under the bridge and Gruden says he still loves both wide receivers.
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However, Gruden said there were some issues: Jackson wasn't physical and Garçon was very stubborn.
"There were some jealousy issues, I think, between the two of them a little bit," Gruden told Sheehan. "But from a talent and coaching them – coaching them, I loved them. I loved having both of them on the field and both on the team.
"But when they got in the huddle, I don't know what happened, if they gave Kirk a hard time, made Kirk uncomfortable. 'Throw me the ball,' 'throw me the ball,' it could have been like that. There wasn't really the true camaraderie, I would say, between the three of them, in my opinion. But, we were very good."
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Listen to Jay Gruden and Kevin Sheehan starting at 21:00 here: