This is the second in a two-part series examining the play of quarterback Kirk Cousins, who could become one of the NFL’s highest-paid players this offseason. The case for signing him to a long-term deal is here.

While Kirk Cousins has taken positive steps forward this season, the quarterback still has a lot to work on and improve if he is to become worthy of the contract he’s likely to seek. One of his biggest problems with the Washington Redskins in 2016 was missing receivers down the field. While he did a better job taking more deep shots in 2016 than he did in 2015, he still missed a number of opportunities down the field.

At times, it was simply overthrowing his receiver.

Here, against the Dallas Cowboys, Cousins has Jamison Crowder in the slot. Crowder runs a deep over route, crossing the middle of the field to the far seam.

Cousins reads Crowder the whole play, spotting him running behind the underneath zone coverage with plenty of room to run into.

Cousins pulls the trigger on what should be an easy throw. There’s no pressure in the pocket and no defender within five yards of Crowder. But Cousins overthrows him. Crowder tries to dive to get his hands to the ball, but it’s just out of reach.

That’s a throw Cousins can’t miss. It should have been an easy touchdown, but instead the drive stalls and Washington misses out on points. Washington went on to lose the game by four.

For the most part, Cousins spotted receivers down the field this season. But there were still times, even late on in the season, where he failed to see open receivers.

Here against the Carolina Panthers in Week 15, Washington aligns three receivers to the left on a four-verticals concept.

On the outside, the Panthers cornerback stays on top of Pierre Garcon’s route, while the deep safety works inside to Crowder’s deep-over route. Tight end Jordan Reed gets level with the alley defender and starts to run past him. But Cousins, feeling pressure, opts to throw to Garcon on the outside.

Garcon never gets past his defender, who stays on top of the route the whole time and reads the throw the whole way. Meanwhile, Reed is wide open up the seam for what would have been a touchdown.

Throwing down the field isn’t easy, but Cousins missed too many opportunities this year. The scheme run by Gruden and McVay had receivers running open consistently, but Cousins didn’t take advantage as often as he should have.

Washington set up this play earlier in the game. On the first third down of the game, DeSean Jackson motioned to the left and ran to the flat as part of a slant-flat combination with tight end Jordan Reed. Cousins missed Jackson in the flat, but the look was the key part of the play. Later in the game, they came back to the same look, showing Jackson motioning to the left in what looked to be a repeat of the same play from earlier. But instead, Jackson turned his flat route into an out-and-up route down the sideline.

The corner bites on the flat route, leaving Jackson space to turn up the field and down the sideline. Cousins gets pressured relatively quickly, but should still be able to put the throw well out in front of Jackson, who has the speed to run under it and score a touchdown.

However, the throw from Cousins is high and outside behind Jackson, making it nearly uncatchable. Jackson does his best to reach back for it, but fails to come up with the catch.

Missed opportunities like those cannot happen as often as they did this past season. Every quarterback misses throws; it happens. But Cousins missed too many, especially for someone who might become the highest-paid quarterback in the league.

The other problem Cousins had was the occasional rash decision. In years gone by, Cousins has been prone to multiple poor decisions per game. He cut down on the number of bad decisions this season, but he was still prone to them from time to time and they often led to ugly interceptions.

Back in Week 2, Washington finds itself in the red zone. Garcon runs a dig route in the back of the end zone.

Cousins feels pressure from his right, making him slide to his left. As he does that, he locks in on Garcon, who he knows should be able to split the safeties in the back of the end zone. However, three defenders all have eyes directly on Cousins and are ready to break on any throw he makes. With Cousins rolling to his left and looking to throw back across his body, he has to know where the safety is on the opposite side.

Cousins throws the ball while slightly falling away, causing the throw to lack velocity. That gives Barry Church, the back side safety, time to work across the jump the route. He even got there too early and had to reach behind him to make the interception in the end zone. It prevented a touchdown when the Redskins led, 23-20. Instead of falling behind by 10, Dallas drove the field for the winning touchdown.

Cousins ended the season in devastating fashion. Needing to beat the Giants to secure a place in the playoffs, Cousins had a chance to lead his team down the field in the two-minute drill, needing just a field goal to take the lead.

Washington runs a basic route concept, with the slot receiver running a go route to clear out space for the dig route from the outside.

As Garcon breaks inside on the dig route, Cousins feels pressure from his right and is forced to pull the ball down and slide to his left.

That movement disrupts the timing of the throw to Garcon. But instead of moving on to another target or attempting to scramble, Cousins attempts to force the ball to Garcon.

Throwing late over the middle is never advisable, but Cousins throw also lacks velocity because of the pressure disrupting his footwork. Those factors all add up and result in the cornerback covering Garcon being able to recover and undercut the route, intercepting the pass and effectively ending Washington’s season.

There couldn’t have been a worse way to end a season, especially considering the contract situation. With the way the team has been built, with heavy investments in offense, it was the situation Washington preferred to be in. Instead of trusting a poor defense to hold a lead, the high-powered offense had a chance to go and win or tie the game — they were down, 13-10 — and take the team into the playoffs. But in the clutch moment, Cousins made a crushing mistake. Washington will have to decide if that’s something Cousins can learn from and move forward, or if that’s just who he is.

With the number of changes to the coaching staff and potentially to the roster, Washington’s 2017 team could be drastically different from its 2016 team. While Cousins has been productive, he’s had a fantastic supporting cast. Both Garcon and Jackson are free agents. Jackson appears likely to leave, perhaps going back to Philadelphia, or possibly to Los Angeles, his home town, to team up with Sean McVay again. Garcon has stated publicly he’d like to be back, but he’s one of the top wide receivers set to hit the market and should receive plenty of good offers, meaning it’s no guarantee he’s back.

Washington still has Reed, a star tight end, slot receiver Jamison Crowder and 2016 first-round pick Josh Doctson. However, Reed has yet to play a 16-game season because of various injuries while Doctson hardly played during his rookie season because of mysterious Achilles’ tendon injuries. With that many potential changes, on top of the loss of McVay and with Gruden taking over the play-calling duties, the continuity factor isn’t quite as big as it was this time last year. Can Cousins maintain a high level of production with fewer weapons and changes to the coaching staff?

Gruden is also entering a key period of his contract. He’ll likely find himself on the hot seat this year and if Washington fails to make the playoffs and moves on from Gruden, does it still want to be tied to his quarterback long term? Any new head coach would have to be fine with working with Cousins and not able to pick his own guy at the most important position in the sport. Washington could tag Cousins and then not be tied to him long term in case of this scenario, but then risk letting him walk for nothing next year.

If a hypothetical deal from the 49ers involved a package including the second overall pick to reunite Cousins with Kyle Shanahan, then Washington would have to seriously consider it. They proved this year that despite the offense being very good, it couldn’t carry a woefully poor defense. Having the chance to land an elite defensive talent at the top of the draft, like Alabama’s Jonathan Allen or Texas A&M’s Myles Garrett, along with still having the 17th overall pick would go a long way to help rebuilding the defense and thus a better overall team long term.

Cousins may prefer this route as well. Sure, a long term contract in Washington would guarantee him some security and a great deal of money. But if Washington opts to move on from Gruden next offseason, Cousins has to start over again with a new coach. Going to San Francisco to team up with Shanahan, who he’s already familiar with, could be a more enticing prospect because in theory Shanahan should have more job security as a new head coach.

Mark Bullock is The Insider’s Outsider, sharing his Redskins impressions without the benefit of access to the team. For more, click here.

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