When you go blow-for-blow with arguably the best quarterback in the league and beat your hated rival with a game-winning drive, people take notice. Kirk Cousins has never had a shortage of detractors, but as he continues to put together an incredible season a lot of those voices are starting to change tune.
On this week’s edition of people who are finally giving Cousins credit we have not one, but two Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
First, on Monday Night Football, after Randy Moss spent some time giving Justin Jefferson a very deserved amount of love, Suzy Kolber asked Steve Young; “Kirk Cousins under appreciated?”
“1000 percent yes.” Young Responded. “Kirk Cousins in my mind has come to that place. Is he great? To be great he’s going to have to go to the playoffs do some great stuff in the fourth quarter I get that, but as far as regular season and what he’s doing for the Vikings right now, he is at least a very very very good quarterback in this league”
Maybe the best part of Young’s comments is that they were followed by Booger McFarland’s who said “and to your point, for so long we talked about Kirk Cousins can’t win on Monday night I heard that story forever…he’s not an elite quarterback…well all he’s doing right now is playing at an elite level. So I don’t know what your definition of and the public’s definition of elite is quarterback is, but whatever it is, Kirk Cousins is that.” It’s great to have more people on the Kirk Cousins bandwagon, but somebody should point out to Booger that he was literally the one pushing that narrative as hard as he could as part of the Monday Night Football broadcast team. Ah the irony of being an NFL personality.
The second gold jacket wearing gunslinger to praise Cousins took the conversation from under appreciated to possibly being the most appreciated an NFL player can be. On NFL Network Andrew Siciliano asked Kurt Warner “Kirk Cousins, 21 touchdowns and two interceptions and we’re not talking about him MVP. Should we?”
If Cousins stays consistent and the Vikings keep winning Warner absolutely believes it’s a possibility:
“Well, if they can win some more games I mean that’s the bottom line. We all know when it comes to the MVP you can have a great year if it doesn’t calculate to wins then you’re not going to win the MVP. But now that they’re starting to stack a couple wins they started to beat teams like the Packers and the Chargers now we’re starting to go okay…we win more games than we lose down the stretch we get ourselves into the playoffs now yeah I think we have to start talking about Kirk Cousins. This is the guy that for years has been able to make those big time throws. I watch him and this guy can make throws that only a handful of guys in this league can make. The key is always consistency with Kirk Cousins can you do it in those critical moments like we saw last week…that kind of stuff makes those check marks on the MVP checklist…but yeah I think people are going to start taking notice of what he’s doing if he keeps pushing”
We’ve come a long way from a preseason that was riddled with vaccine controversy and a league-wide belief that Cousins couldn’t lead a powerful offense in important moments. It’s nice to have the best to have ever done something in your corner, and the Minnesota Vikings certainly hope that by the end of this season there will be a lot more names on that believers list.
