

(John McDonnell/The Washington Post)

Fair or not, there was a perception last season that Kirk Cousins got down on himself after interceptions, which might have contributed to his post-turnover struggles. This was discussed extensively during and after Washington’s October win over Tennessee, when Cousins was benched in favor of Colt McCoy. He didn’t play again.

“I look at Kirk Cousins as a guy that’s not sure of himself,” Rich Gannon said during that game.

“I’ve always noticed the body language of Cousins,” Kevin Harlan said moments later. “It’s just not what you want to see if you’re a coach.”

Well, look above. That’s the body language of a man who is sure of himself. That’s a man who wants to embrace every part of the world, and doesn’t even care if the world embraces him back. It’s what “WOOOOOO!” would look like if it took a human form and put on ugly yellow pants. Now contrast that with this, from last October. (And yes, I’m evidently arguing that a professional football player looks happier after he scores than after he turns the ball over. Crazy, right?)

When Cousins was handed the starting role this summer, many observers expected the head-hanging to continue: one interception would beget another, which would blend seamlessly into a third, and soon the world would be awash in interceptions and bad body language and analyses of the tilt of his head.

That hasn’t exactly happened. On the drive after Cousins’s interception against Chicago, he went 3-for-4 for 44 yards and Washington wound up with a field goal. On the drive after Cousins’s previous interception, against Carolina, he went 2-for-2 for 73 yards and a touchdown. On the drive after Cousins was sacked (and Tampa Bay returned his fumble for a touchdown), he went 4-for-4 for 50 yards, and scored on an eight-yard run.

He’s still had more turnovers this season than you’d want. But it’s hard to come up with a compelling case that he falls apart after these turnovers. And if you ask him, that narrative never worked.

“The narrative, in my opinion, was just incorrect,” Cousins said on 106.7 The Fan Monday morning. “If I was hanging my head after throwing a pick, then I probably would have protected the football and tried to take more sacks. Usually in the past, I threw a pick, we got down, I felt a need to make up for it so I was even more aggressive and ended up throwing more picks. It was kind of the opposite of hanging your head; it was trying to do too much, it was trying to get it all back in one play and fix what you just had screwed up.

“So I think more of it as, ‘Hey, I just threw a pick, but don’t try to get it all back now. Just stay composed, take what they give you, if you have to take a sack, take a sack, but don’t force anything and try to make up for what you did.’ So I think that comes with experience, that comes with growing as a player — that it’s not all on you, you don’t have to do it all yourself. Just try to be a part, one of the 11 guys on the team. And I think that’s where I’ve grown, is just kind of understanding that I’ve got to stay patient and keep us around. And as long as I protect the football, usually we’ll be there at the end of the fourth quarter and have a chance to win the game.”

I’m not in Cousins’s head, so I’ll take his word that he wasn’t beating himself up last season. And I have no idea whether body language has any tangible impact on football games. I do know that Cousins looked pleasantly steely-jawed after his interception on Sunday, assuming brown fuzz could grow on pleasant steel.

And also that Jay Cutler looked, I dunno, kind of sour after his own fumble. Like he had just eaten three-day-old, room temperature coleslaw.

Yes, it’s certainly possible that I grabbed these images at unfair moments based on my own internal biases. Also, chin-steel-levels probably don’t count for as many points as touchdowns in traditional scoring systems. Man, I do wish I had a steely chin, by the way. How does one get one of them? It’s uncanny how often I look like Cutler does here during a normal work day. Like, right now, as a matter of fact.

If Cousins doesn’t like the “bad body language” narrative, here’s one he does support: that he remains an inexperienced quarterback who continues to learn and whose best days are in front of him. So here, for example, was Cousins discussing that absurd play where Jordan Reed tipped a jump ball to Matt Jones.

“The bottom line is I think going forward I want to be a quarterback that’s able to make some ‘opportunity throws’ like that,” Cousins told Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier on Monday. “Not quite like that, but there’s a lot of times in this league where guys are covered, and you throw it and give them a chance, and they make a play. I think that’s something I want to do more of, and I think it can make us a more explosive offense. But it’s something you’ve got to practice, something that takes reps and takes building a rapport over time. And I don’t know that we’re there yet right now, but we keep going and try to get there.”

And here was Cousins talking about his statistical pace, which could leave him with one of the best passing seasons in Redskins franchise history.

“As long as it leads to a division title and a playoff berth, I think it’s outstanding,” he said. “If you walk away from the season feeling like that wasn’t accomplished, then the individual stuff doesn’t mean quite as much. But there’s no doubt, you want to feel like you’re contributing to your team’s success, like you’re helping your organization, not hurting your organization. And those kind of accomplishments, I think, certainly would clarify that you’re helping the team and you’re doing good things.

“And this is my first year starting,” Cousins continued. “This is not Year 10. This is not Year 11. And if that’s what year one can produce, then I’m excited for years two, three and four. So I think there’s a lot of reasons to be focused on what we have right now but also excited about the future. So just keep grinding.”