Kirk Cousins may be primed to continue from from where he left off in 2015
Bob Lung discusses why Kirk Cousins is a top 10 fantasy QB entering the season.
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Kirk Cousins’ outburst at the end of the Week 7 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers set social media on fire with his “You Like That?” scream. While most fantasy owners and meme creators were enjoying ridiculing Cousins for his intensity, some fantasy experts were noticing his improved weekly fantasy scoring and his consistency during the second half of the season.
In case you missed it, let me share the numbers with you. Over the last eight weeks of the season, Cousins earned 205 Fantasy points and earned a 75 percent clutch rating (consistency rating). If you annualized those total fantasy points, Cousins would have earned 411 Fantasy points and ended the season ranked second. A 75 percent clutch rating would have ranked him fifth in consistency.
Therefore, I currently have Cousins ranked as my QB9 heading into the 2016 season here at FantasyPros. His current ADP on the site is QB15 and I have seen him ranked in the 20s in some ADP tracking sites.
Why do I believe Cousins should be ranked in the top 10 for quarterbacks? Well, mostly because nothing has really changed in Washington in the off-season. Most importantly, nothing has changed for the worst. Offensively, the running back situation has changed from Alfred Morris to Matt Jones. I’ll call that a tie. No real improvement and no real decline.
The wide receivers still include DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon and Jamison Crowder from 2015. However, there may be an improvement to this situation due to the Redskins drafting Josh Doctson in the first round. One of the best players in the NFL includes tight end, Jordan Reed.
One more issue to consider from an offensive standpoint are the defensive front seven rankings for the three NFC east teams heading into 2016. According to ProFootballFocus, the Giants are the only team ranked better than 21st. Therefore, all of the defenses in the NFC East are ranked poorly for 2016.
The Redskins are ranked 27th by Pro Football Focus. Therefore, the Redskins defense hasn’t improved from last year, giving Cousins and the passing offense every reason to need to throw the ball in 2016 and with the terrible defenses in the NFC East, there’s no reason to believe Cousins won’t be a top 10 quarterback in both total points and consistency this season.
