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Josh Allen tossed a Week 1 gem, but is Kirk Cousins washed? Quick Outs

11 September 2024Last Update :
Josh Allen tossed a Week 1 gem, but is Kirk Cousins washed? Quick Outs

Welcome to Quick Outs, The Athletic’s weekly, midweek NFL grab bag for the 2024 season. With last Sunday well in the rearview mirror and next Sunday so far out on the horizon, this is a good chance to take a breather and have a sober look at the league.

Each week’s column will include a rotating cast of sections, aside from our weekly quarterback charting, which will remain a staple. Otherwise, this column will be a place to examine different themes throughout the year.

Some weeks there will be a nonnegotiable story we have to cover. We’ll also be open to highlighting a standout player or unit (“Needle-mover”), digging into the data (“Stat check”), just letting me get something off my chest (“Scramble drill”) or whatever else the football gods call our attention to. The NFL is a fluid league, and this column hopes to match that energy.

Football is finally here, folks, and there’s a ton to talk about after Week 1.

QB charting: Josh Allen

Allen was surgical in the season opener.

It’s fun that we can say things like that about the Buffalo Bills’ quarterback now. We used to live in a world in which every Allen passing performance was a balancing act between his best and worst plays. That was true even when he started to come alive in 2021 and 2022. How far things have come that Allen can have a game with a nearly 80 percent accuracy rate and nobody bats an eye.

Allen was locked in on underneath throws. Stick routes, slants, shallow crossers, checkdowns: You name it, Allen was hitting quick-game throws within the rhythm of the offense when asked to and finding underneath answers late in the progression when need be.

He was accurate on 10 of 12 passes thrown between 1 and 10 yards, and one of those incompletions was knocked down at the line of scrimmage on a designed flat throw out of a bunch formation. The other was a slight miss on a checkdown to a backup running back on the Bills’ last offensive play.

Allen’s final numbers
Comp. Att. TDs WR Adj. PD
Total
18
23
2
2
2
Under pressure
2
2
0
1
0
Out of pocket
2
3
0
1
0
5-plus pass rushers
4
6
1
0
2
Man coverage
4
6
1
0
2
Zone coverage
12
15
0
2
0
Tight-window throws
2
5
1
0
2
Open-window throws
14
16
0
2
0

(Note: “WR adj.” refers to a completion on which the receiver had to make an adjustment to the throw.)

The only two throws Allen missed in the intermediate range were fine “misses,” too. One was an out-of-structure throw to Dawson Knox that was well contested by the defender; the other was a goal-line fade to a smothered Keon Coleman. The throw to Knox gave Buffalo’s tight end a chance but could have been better; the Coleman play was DOA regardless of what Allen did.

Allen’s only serious miss was on a deep shot to Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Buffalo’s lone shot play of the game. Explosive passes might be hard to come by with this Bills receiving corps, so that was a brutal one. If Allen can be as clean as he was otherwise, though, it’ll probably be fine.

All of Allen’s situational numbers were stellar, as well. He threw only two passes under pressure, often choosing to use his ostrich legs to pick up the yards himself instead. But he hit both of those under-pressure throws. Blitzing didn’t phase Allen, either. He was accurate on 4 of 6 throws while facing at least five rushers, including a heater versus Cover 0 to Mack Hollins for a touchdown.

Allen was squeaky clean as a thrower and chaotically brilliant as a runner — that’s the player he has become. The “intrusive thoughts” plays and games still pop up every now and again. (He opened the game with a funky strip-sack, after all.) The point, though, is those plays are more the exception than the rule now.

What a statement game by Allen to remind us of the player he has matured into.

Needle-mover: The Houston Texans’ run game

Hype around the Texans offense heading into the season had almost nothing to do with its run game. In theory, all the run game needed this season was to be functional and stay out of the way of the passing offense — just get to 4.2 yards per attempt, avoid negative plays and let C.J. Stroud cook.

It already might be time to recalibrate.

The Texans racked up 213 rushing yards on the Indianapolis Colts, making them the only team in the league to clear the 200-yard mark in Week 1. Almost all the teams directly behind them were the usual suspects: the Baltimore Ravens with 185 yards, the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints with 180 each, Greg Roman’s Los Angeles Chargers, the New England Patriots, the Detroit Lions. Maybe the Saints are a bit of a surprise, but those other teams want to be at the top of the rushing leaderboard every single week.

But the Texans weren’t necessarily expected to function that way. It wasn’t just volume numbers for them, either. Houston finished Week 1 fourth in success rate (52.8 percent) and seventh in EPA per play on designed runs, per TruMedia. The run got everything it wanted, all day long.

So, how did the Texans do it? Was it offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, the offensive line, running back Joe Mixon … or something else?

The boring and predictable answer is it was a little bit of everything.

Let’s start with the big boys up front. This is a Texans line that was banged up all last year — so much so that current center Juice Scruggs played guard as a rookie. Now Scruggs has two barroom brawlers next to him: left guard Kenyon Green and right guard Shaq Mason. Left tackle Laremy Tunsil is still as good as ever, and Tytus Howard remains a stable force at right tackle.

Green was the standout of the bunch Sunday. An up-and-down player to this point in his career, Green mashed defensive tackles and linebackers alike. On the first run of the game, he knocked DeForest Buckner 3 yards off the ball, then took a linebacker to the ground.

Slowik deserves his flowers, too. This isn’t a vanilla “outside zone and more outside zone” early Kyle Shanahan-scheme run game. You did see outside zone and weak zone with various motions, but there was so much more. Slowik turned to some one-back power out of the gun, same-side power out of the gun and even some split-back runs.

To that end, the Texans were all over the place with their formations and personnel. They also put two tight ends on the field for 38.2 percent of their plays, per TruMedia, a clip cleared in Week 1 by only the Ravens and Atlanta Falcons. All the different formations, personnel usage and run concepts had the Colts’ second-level players moving in slow motion.

And don’t forget about Mixon, the new back in town.

He immediately brought the vision and tough, efficient rushing style this team needed. For as lacking in explosive runs as he was with the Cincinnati Bengals last season, Mixon was a guaranteed 3 to 5 yards anytime he touched the ball. And with the Texans offensive line playing the way it did Sunday, those guaranteed 3- to 5-yard gains started to look more like 5- to 8-yard gains consistently.

One caveat: It felt like the Colts tried to stunt their line the wrong way every single time the Texans ran the ball. That is, of course, a testament to Slowik for keeping Gus Bradley guessing, but it also seemed impossible for the Colts to be as wrong as often as they were. Let’s see what Houston has in the tank versus a more stable run-defense approach.

This is going to be a good run game, though. They’ve sold me.

Stat check: Kirk Cousins

The Falcons ran 96 percent of their plays out of a shotgun or pistol formation against the Pittsburgh Steelers, per ESPN Stats & Info.

It turns out that starting Cousins, 36, fresh off an Achilles tear put some restraints on the offense. Cousins could not move Sunday.

That doesn’t sound like a problem for a pocket passer, but this isn’t about scrambling or creativity — we know he’s never been that guy. The issue is Cousins was so limited that deep dropbacks from under center and any play-action attempts that required him to turn his back to the line were off the table. All Cousins could manage was to take shotgun and pistol dropbacks with limited movement, 2015 Peyton Manning style.

Cousins’ limitations forced offensive coordinator Zac Robinson into a box. The Falcons ran all but one play from shotgun or pistol, and they never moved Cousins outside the pocket by design. All their rushing plays were out of the pistol, too, as that was their best way to simulate the under-center looks they wanted.

Robinson also did not call a single play-action pass for Cousins. Read that again: Cousins, the league’s pre-eminent play-action merchant, did not get any play-action passes called for him, because he could not drop back that far. There’s no world in which Robinson or Cousins wants the offense to work that way.

Even little movements in the pocket were a struggle. His only throw on the move, in any capacity, was a freebie to a wide-open Kyle Pitts at the left side of the end zone. Cousins didn’t seem comfortable planting his back foot and driving off the ground to throw the ball, either. The refs could have placed a stool 5 yards behind center Drew Dalman, and Cousins would have played the same exact game.

There are always flukes in Week 1, but this does not feel like one. It’s hard to imagine Cousins just springing to life in Week 2 and looking like the guy who was one of the league’s most productive passers halfway through last season. I’d buckle in for at least another month of this.

Scramble drill: Why, Jaguars?

One week in and we already have to talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars being the most exasperating team in football.

Through 2 1/2 quarters Sunday, the Jaguars had the Miami Dolphins in a headlock.

Jacksonville’s defense had a fresh energy. New defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen had that unit swarming to shut down the Dolphins’ plays on the perimeter. The Jaguars made the Dolphins earn every inch. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle each got one explosive play apiece — but c’mon, the Dolphins do that to every defense, especially in September.

Offensively, it was everything Jaguars fans and Trevor Lawrence hopefuls wanted to see. The Jaguars actually got under center and established a run game, something they never accomplished in 2023. Gabe Davis looked useful. Brian Thomas Jr. showed flashes, even if his “best” play was drawing a pass interference flag on the 1-yard line.

A few mistakes aside, the team looked like it was coming together and giving Lawrence enough help that he could shine. That’s all anyone needed to see here, just a little injection of stability around the quarterback after a death spiral to end last season.

But a jaguar can’t change its spots.

Late in the third quarter, running back Travis Etienne Jr. coughed up a fumble inside the 5 on what should have been a free touchdown. He had nothing but the end zone ahead of him. However, safety Jevon Holland was beside him and popped the ball out at the last moment.

A touchdown there would have capped a 97-yard drive to put the Jaguars up 24-7. A score after a drive like that might have been the ballgame.

Now, you might think a catastrophic goal-line fumble would lead the coaching staff to then lean on its star quarterback to ice the game.

(LOUD BUZZER)

Wrong.

On their next drive, the Jaguars banged their heads against the wall with the run game for four consecutive plays. They failed to gain a yard on the last two attempts. Lawrence didn’t throw the ball again on a non-penalty-erased play until third down of the following drive, a play on which the Dolphins generated a free rusher on a blitz immediately. Once the Dolphins tied things out, Lawrence was sacked two straight times to end Jacksonville’s final drive.

Dolphins kicker Jason Sanders put a pin in things shortly after that for a 20-17 Miami win.

How frustrating. The Jaguars defense held up its end and the offense looked put together for 42 minutes … until one setback completely derailed everything. The whole operation shouldn’t fall apart that fast. It just shouldn’t be that fickle. Maybe it’d be fine in Year 1 with a new staff, but not Year 3.

I realize this was more a chronicle of unfortunate events and grievances than anything else, but as someone brave and stubborn enough to believe Lawrence is a very good quarterback, I’m tired of this. It’s exhausting watching the team around him.

All right, glad I could get a Week 1 rant off my chest. Now the season really feels like it’s here.

(Lead illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Top photo: Bryan M. Bennett / Getty Images; Josh Allen chart illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic)

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