Colt McCoy will be Washington’s new starting QB if Robert Griffin not ready

Kirk Cousins is like the bizarro Willie Beamen from the movie “Any Given Sunday.” Unlike Beamen’s character, who became a star overnight, Cousins’ reputation has dropped in an unbelievably precipitous manner, to the point where he has been benched for Colt McCoy.

Yep, that Colt McCoy.

[Join FanDuel.com’s $2.5M Week 8 fantasy league: $25 to enter; top 21,905 teams paid]

All of the talk of Cousins being the savior of the Washington Redskins after Robert Griffin III’s injury was a tad much, it turns out. Cousins, who has been prone to turning the ball over in his NFL career, was benched at halftime of Sunday’s win against the Tennessee Titans. If Griffin can’t come back from a dislocated ankle to play against the Dallas Cowboys on Oct. 27, McCoy will get the start, Redskins coach Jay Gruden said.

“We’ll move forward with Colt,” Gruden said, according to CSN Washington.

It’s not fair to declare Cousins’ Redskins career dead, but it doesn’t look promising. McCoy is 28, has been fairly mediocre his whole career (22 touchdowns, 20 interceptions, 76.1 rating) and is not the long-term answer in Washington. But it doesn’t appear Cousins is either, and he has been ruining the Redskins’ chances of winning games in the present during Griffin’s absence.

Cousins has 19 interceptions to 18 touchdowns in his career, and had turned the ball over 11 times in six games this season. Now that we’ve seen Cousins play, at least it’s unlikely we’ll deal with yet another offseason of the Redskins leaking to the media that many teams are interested in trading for their backup. That era seems over.

– – – – – – –

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab