Kirk Cousins put together yet another fantastic performance in Washington’s win over the Green Bay Packers Sunday night, and he capped it off by enthusiastically getting in the face of general manager Scot McCloughan. A lot of assumptions have been made about the exchange, and Cousins addressed those on Monday.
In his weekly spot on 106.7 The Fan, Cousins did not deny that he was sending a message to the man who chose not to give him a long-term contract extension.
“I mean, first of all, you’ve got to realize that in a perfect world that doesn’t get caught on camera and it’s just between me and him in a backroom somewhere,” Cousins told Grant Paulsen and Danny Rouhier, as transcribed by Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post. “But for whatever reason, it was on the field. And yeah, it’s just organic, it’s natural out of the emotion coming off of a big win. That’s what comes out, just like ‘You like that?’ or any of the other stuff that’s been put out there.”
Cousins went on to say that he believes McCloughan has done a “phenomenal job” and that the GM is the reason Cousins even got a chance to prove himself last season. Interestingly enough, Cousins also revealed that he recently spoke with McCloughan to get an “update,” which presumably pertained to the quarterback’s contract situation.
“And then just a couple weeks ago I wanted to go meet with him and just say can you just kind of give me an update on what your thoughts are and what you’re seeing,” Cousins said. “But really other than that, unless one of us is trying to do that, we really just say hi to each other in the hallway. He lets me do my job, and I let him do his, and we both know that the door’s always open and there could be open communication at any point.”
Washington decided to break off contract talks with Cousins after giving him the franchise tag last offseason. If he continues to play the way he has recently, the exchange he had with McCloughan or his infamous “you like that?!” moment from last year (video here) may become even more frequent.
