Cousins, ’Skins left feeling bug-eyed
LANDOVER, MD. » It was next to impossible to find the words to describe what the Eagles did Sunday to Kirk Cousins — their personal tormentor — and the Washington Redskins.
Thankfully the Eagles illustrated the dominance in a risque dance by big guys Fletcher Cox and Vinny Curry. Cox, who weighs 315 pounds, scooped up the fourth Philly takeaway on the day and rolled 20 yards for the touchdown with 1:29 left to end whatever suspense remained in the 30-17 win over the Redskins. Curry, about 279 after a plate of nachos, joined him for the dance that excited a noisy and sizable group of Eagles fans at FedEx Field.
The bug eye goes kind of like this: You put your right arm out, you pull your right arm back, you do the hokey pokey and you wait for the replay review to come up positive.
Referee Brad Allen and the league official he spoke with could find no reason to overturn Brandon Graham’s strip sack triggering the bug eye celebration, much to the chagrin of Cousins, who felt it was an incomplete pass. Some Eagles players thought so, too.
Graham, who had two of the Eagles’ four sacks, was worried the sack and the takeaway TD would be overturned.
“Yeah, I thought it was,” Graham said. “I really thought it was. I’ve got to see that. I don’t know if I got my left hand on it and then my right hand. I don’t know. From what I saw on the Jumbotron — I don’t know what it looked like. I dipped and ripped. I saw the ball and I just went for it. I didn’t realize I hit it out of his hand. I thought he was throwing it, at first. But they saw it. I’m glad they gave me that gift because I was tired out there.”
Graham and Cox barreled right through the blockers in knocking Cousins down on secondand-three from the 32-yard line of Washington. It was one of two takeaways in the frame. Cornerback Jalen Mills picked off Cousins in the end zone to end a Redskins threat that reached the Philly 14. At that point, the Eagles led by just two points.
Later in the final frame, Caleb Sturgis kicked his third field goal for the five-point cushion Cousins was trying to overcome.
It wasn’t a masterpiece, rather just what the Eagles needed to end a five-game losing streak in the series and a seven-game road skid.
Entering the game Cousins had thrown 12 TD passes and three picks against the Eagles en route to a 4-1 record. Add one, one and one to all of those numbers, the latter in the loss column.
“We brought some pressure today but the main thing was just knowing what we had to do as a defense and executing our game plan,” said linebacker Nigel Bradham, who set the tone with some ferocious first-half hits. “We knew we were going to be able to force turnovers. We’ve been big on that all training camp, all preseason. We have defensive ‘musts’ that we set up. Eliminate big plays, stop the run. And I think we did a great job on that today. And that also helped create more turnovers.”
The Redskins had 17 rushes for 64 yards, forcing Cousins into attempting 40 passes.
The Philly offense — with Carson Wentz throwing for 307 yards and two touchdowns and Nelson Agholor opening the scoring with a 58-yard bomb — converted eight of 14 third downs and kept the ball out of Cousins’ hands until it was too late.
It was rough-tough football, the Eagles doing a chunk of it to have the back of cornerback Ronald Darby, who was carted off in the first half with an ankle injury that will keep him out indefinitely, according to Doug Pederson.
And some of it was good fortune, just like the takeaway TD.
“He had D-Jack and those guys, he had a bunch of good guys like Pierre Garcon,” Graham said referencing former Skins receiver DeSean Jackson, et al. “Garcon was one of their best route runners. I think today Terrelle Pryor dropped a couple of passes that Pierre Garcon usually catches on that little drag across the middle. And I think a couple of those drops really hurt them. I’m just happy we came out with the win.”
Cox and Curry were happy their group celebration held up. That they had something to show after the NFL loosened the celebration rules speaks volumes about their level of preparation. Just don’t ask them to explain the nuances of it.
“Ask the choreographer,” Curry said. “That’s Fletch’s nickname, the bug eye. There’s going to be a lot of bug eye going on this year.”
Said Cox, “I’m not going to reveal the secret.
“That’s the stuff we come up with during practice, or down time, having fun in that locker room,” Cox said. “The whole thing about this league is you’ve got to have fun.”
In all seriousness, the choreography could benefit from smoother synchronization with the arm movements. That’s not something teammates will point out, though.
“That’s a big man thing,” linebacker Najee Goode said. “That’s definitely a big man thing. That’s just what they do, the big dudes. You saw them after BG got the sack, they started taking pictures, like they were snapping photos. It’s big man stuff. They think they can dance. D-linemen aren’t always in the limelight so when they get their chance, bro, they be rocking.”
That rocking was contagious all the way through the defense.