A year ago, Kirk Cousins didn’t crack the NFL’s top half of quarterbacks in Madden, leaving many Minnesota Vikings fans upset. “The upcoming EA Sports video game ranked 15 other quarterbacks ahead of the three-time Pro Bowler,” wrote Jordy McElroy on Vikings Wire, “including Matt Ryan and Ryan Tannehill.
Never mind the fact that Cousins is coming off a Pro Bowl season. Never mind that he threw for 4,221 yards, 33 touchdowns and only seven interceptions. Never mind him coming into the 2022 season with one of the most talented offenses in the league and an offensive guru turned head coach in Kevin O’Connell.
Cousins still failed to crack the top-15 at quarterback with an 80 overall rating.
That was where the consensus on Cousins was, though. Every year, Mike Sando releases his “quarterback tiers” on The Athletic, where he has 50 NFL coaches and executives rank who the best signal-callers are in the league. Last season, Cousins ranked 15th, one spot below Ryan and two ahead of Tannehill.
Ryan was the final player in Sando’s second tier; Cousins was the first in the third. “If there’s ever a Tier 3 Hall of Fame, Cousins might get the first bust,” Sando wrote. “In the past six years Cousins was first in Tier 3 twice, second twice, and fourth another time. He was also the final quarterback in Tier 2 one year. His average vote this year (2.72) is within a hundredth of where he stood twice previously.”
Perception is reality, and many fans still see him as a player with great stats who can’t win when it matters most. He only has one playoff win, an overtime victory over the New Orleans Saints in 2019. And while he led comebacks over the Buffalo Bills and Indianapolis Colts last year, his final pass was a checkdown in a playoff loss to the underdog New York Giants. Until Netflix released Quarterback earlier this month, that was the lasting memory fans carried into the offseason.
But the Netflix documentary, which also featured Patrick Mahomes and Marcus Mariota, provided a favorable look at Cousins’ life on and off the gridiron. We saw him fight through pain after suffering a rib injury in the Washington Commanders game. He meticulously prepared for games at the Vikings practice facility and in his car. He invited us behind his Murphy door into a room full of memorabilia. Cousins came off as a normal guy. Well, normal for anyone who has his brain scanned with his wife and listens to play calls in a Ford truck.
On Friday, ESPN revealed the Madden ratings for their top 10 quarterbacks. Cousins landed at No. 9 with an 84 Overall rating, one spot higher than Tua Tagovailoa (83) and behind Aaron Rodgers (86). Most notably, though, he starts the year four points higher than last season. He’s always hovered around 80. He had a 79 Overall rating in 2022 and between 81 and 82 every other season he’s been in Minnesota. However, his highest rating was 85 Overall during his final season in Washington, meaning that the Madden raters feel the Vikings bought high on the enigmatic quarterback.
Perhaps Cousins will break through in his age-35 season. It would be an uncommon, Rich Gannon-like path. However, it would be fitting. Washington drafted him as a backup, and he succeeded in a dysfunctional organization. In 2018, Cousins signed an $84 million deal with the Vikings but played for a defensive coach. But next season, Cousins will enter Year 2 of Kevin O’Connell’s system. And while there was a learning curve last season, he should thrive in an offense geared toward his strengths.
We won’t know Sando’s quarterback tiers yet, but Cousins may be a top-10 quarterback entering the season in the eyes of coaches and executives. They put Matt Ryan ahead of Cousins last year, and Ryan, 38, had a career-low 42.9 QBR. He looked terrible most of the season, including in Minnesota’s comeback over the Indianapolis Colts. Tannehill only played in 12 games and had a 49.1 QBR. Cousins gutted out 17 games and had a 49.9 QBR. He’s still in that range, but he should at least vault into Tier 2 next season.
Cousins didn’t play much better than he usually does last year. But he played through pain and seems like a good neighbor. He’s a perfectionist with a Murphy door. A God-fearing man with incredible pain tolerance. Cousins has always had the stats. He’s always had a profound understanding of football. But he built a lot of equity with the public by giving us a window into his life. Many viewers came away liking him more than they did before. He might not be any better than he was last year or the year before that. But perception is reality, and Cousins got a little bump after the Netflix doc.
