Kirk Cousins' ridiculous blunder doesn't cost Redskins vs. Eagles

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Kirk Cousins was putting together a nice little scoring drive for the Washington Redskins to close out the first half against the Eagles, driving down to their 6-yard line. Then with six seconds on the clock and no timeouts remaining, the fourth-year signal-caller did something inexplicable.

Cousins took a knee, giving himself up and allowing time to expire.

Washington could've taken one last shot at the end zone. The Redskins could've kicked a chip-shot 23-yard field goal to increase their lead from six to nine.

Instead, Cousins committed one of the most amazing blunders by a quarterback all season, perhaps in modern NFL history.

Ultimately, it didn't matter, as Washington wound up winning comfortably by a final of 38-24. At the time, however, the score was 16-10, and the game felt like it could come down to the wire.

"Yeah, there was a lot of confusion with what the play call was," Cousins said. "For a lack of a better word, I just had a lapse in my decision-making and took a knee when I should have thrown the ball away to stop the clock. We were fortunate it didn't end up hurting us."

Confusion swept the field as the events unfolded. While kneeling, Cousins then slammed the football on the ground as if he had meant to spike it to stop the clock, stood up and looked to flip the ball back to the officials. Upon finally realizing his mistake, Cousins attempted to take off with the football. A few Eagles went to wrap him up, but the majority of players for both teams stood in a huddled mass wondering what just transpired as whistles blew the play dead.

Any clock play in that situation made no sense. Obviously, kneeling was ridiculous. A spike was unnecessary too, however, because the Eagles had just called a timeout.

The only logical calls there were to throw for the end zone or bring on the field-goal unit. Washington head coach Jay Gruden confirmed it was supposed to be a passing play.

"Six seconds left, we were going to throw a fade to Pierre Garcon," Gruden told CBS at halftime. "I have no idea why Kirk took a knee. I'll have to find out at halftime."

While the play was certainly bizarre, the Eagles won't take much solace in that with their season now over. Lucky for Cousins, Washington's victory turns this notably terrible decision into a largely forgettable footnote.

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