Kirk Cousins has been through enough rough Sundays to know there are two wrong ways to handle one. After two straight losses, the Las Vegas Raiders quarterback said Wednesday the answer sits somewhere between shrugging it off and dwelling on it.
“Tough times don’t last, tough people do,” Cousins said. “You can’t have the poor me and you can’t brush it off as no big deal. You have to find that balance of how you come back to work with, you know, it hurts, it matters to you, but at the same time, new week.”
Owning the end of the Chiefs game
Cousins said the offense moved the ball against Kansas City and New England but left a play here and a third down there on the field. He put part of it on himself. “At the end of the game against the Chiefs, would have loved to have handled that final snap differently,” he said. “Sometimes the bullets are flying, it’s going fast, and you got a lot to process.”
He said the Raiders call situational football “the fourth phase,” with weekly presentations on what happened around the league and a situation simulated in every walkthrough. “You got to be a situational master,” Cousins said. “They tend to be the inches that make the difference.”
He also recalled advice from Philip Rivers about Wednesdays. “He said, ‘Kirk, every Wednesday, you got to come in, new week, positive attitude, flush whatever happened, come into the cafeteria with a smile on your face,’” Cousins said. “That’s always stuck with me.”
Saturday-night refreshers
Asked whether he quizzes teammates the way some veterans do, Cousins said his version comes late in the week. “At the end of the week, I try to compile some of the new curveballs,” he said. “I’ll just take a couple minutes on Saturday night and just say, ‘Hey guys, here’s some things as I went back through the game plan, just to re-emphasize.’ Me saying it to you helps me now play with confidence.”
Glaze, Heyward and Mike Washington
Cousins singled out right tackle DJ Glaze for handling a 50-plus pass-attempt game a few weeks ago. “He’s so quiet, you don’t really notice him out there,” he said, comparing it to what he used to say about Christian Darrisaw. “They’re usually doing something right, not something wrong.”
He said fullback Connor Heyward’s versatility lets the offense stay in one personnel grouping without tipping its hand. “Fullbacks and tight ends tend to be that Swiss Army knife player,” Cousins said. He also wants more touches for running back Mike Washington. “Mike has a lot of juice,” he said. “Good things happen when the football’s in his hand.” And he praised Ashton Jeanty for practicing hard through health issues: “When you see one of your star players practicing hard, having a positive attitude, it brings everybody else up, too.”
The Raiders host the Bills on Sunday, October 18.
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