Commentary | Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith and Kirk Cousins look at each other as way out of misery
TAMPA
Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Lovie Smith must see each other as a way out of their respective misery.
But there is only room for one on this getaway bus.
Lovie has booked that seat. He just needs Cousins to punch the ticket.
A win this Sunday in Washington will give the Bucs their first two game win streak with Lovie and put them at .500 for the first time under his reign.
"I've seen some of their comments about how it's a must-(win) game. We are saying the same thing down here," Smith says. "We have an opportunity to even up our record and all of that."
All of that is Cousins. He could be a defining moment for Smith.
Lovie is the defensive guru who brought fear into opposing quarterbacks during his reign of terror in Chicago.
The coach says he hasn't changed, but guys like Marcus Mariota, Ryan Mallett and Blake Bortles say otherwise with their play.
They all had their best games against the Bucs this year. People were calling Mariota rookie of the year after he dismantled Tampa Bay, completing 13 of 15 passes for 209 yards and four touchdowns.
We thought Mallett locked up the starting quarterback job for Houston after the Texans beat the Bucs. He had his best
game as a starter with a 75.6 quarterback rating completing 24 of 39 passes for 228 yards and a touchdown.
Blake Bortles had his best game of the season against the Bucs throwing four TD passes with a 125.4 quarterback rating in a loss, though the Jaguars put up a season-high 31 points.
Mallett is now a backup to Brian Hoyer and Bortles has gone back to being a second-year struggling quarterback.
Mariota has had some good moments, but nothing like the day he lit up the skies over Tampa Bay.
Cousins is the latest beleaguered quarterback waiting to open Lovie's medicine chest and take some of the cure-all that Mariota, Mallet and Bortles swallowed,
Cousins has eight interceptions and six touchdown passes. His quarterback rating of 77.4 ranks 43 in the league below Mariota and Bortles and just a shade better than Mallett.
He is coming off arguably his worst game of an undistinguished career.
That's what makes him so scary to the Bucs.
Against the New York Jets last week, Cousins completed 40 percent of his passes when under pressure. He was 3 for 12 for 46 yards on passes that traveled more than 10 yards in the air. His 4.6 yards per attempt was the lowest mark among all quarterbacks last week.
In four of his six starts this year, Cousins has thrown at least two interceptions. Washington's two victories came in the game he didn't throw a pick. He looks like cannon fodder. But the Bucs' defense has shown a penchant for resurrecting dead quarterbacks.
Cousins is a fourth-year pro who is playing like a rookie: He has thrown so many interceptions (3.5 percent of his passes), he talks about some being worse than others.
Cousins needs Lovie as bad as Lovie needs him.
He rates his interceptions as awful, not so awful and who knows what?
The excuses we hear Washington head coach Jay Gruden make about Cousins are similar to what we hear Smith say about his defense.
The Bucs have the fifth-ranked defense in yards per game allowed but rank 31st out of 32 NFL teams in points per game allowed (29.6 ppg) because of their problems in red-zone defense.
"Your stats, your record, that's who you are. You have to go on that," Smith says. "If you look at total yards and some of those things, you can feel good, but the things we need to do better, yes, I am going to the points, I'm going to takeaways, to third-down conversions. Those are things that will really help us win football games."
Alan Dell, Herald sports writer, can be reached at 941-745-7056. Follow him on Twitter @ADellSports.
This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 12:28 AM with the headline "Commentary | Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Lovie Smith and Kirk Cousins look at each other as way out of misery ."