During Dan Barreiro’s July 17 show, a listener from Ham Lake chimed in with a comment. If Kirk Cousins wants to take a day off during the week, he can work a $150,000-per-year desk job. People have said worse things on Reddit threads, social media, or comment sections. $150,000 per year is nothing to sneeze at. But the sentiment is clear.
The Minnesota Vikings’ $35 million quarterback owes the Vikings more than a six-figure worker owes his employer.
People can easily dismiss that sentiment when it comes from someone emailing a radio station from deep in the suburbs. It’s a little more difficult when it’s a prominent, credible voice from someone with a massive platform.
“Eleven years, 12 years into his NFL career, we know he is who he is,” NBC’s Mike Florio said on Paul Allen’s show on Wednesday. “The problem is, he brings you to a level of performance and overall competitiveness that allows you to basically tread water.
He’s just gonna be middle-of-the-pack, comfortably middle-of-the-pack, right? Get paid well to be middle-of-the-pack. Content to be middle-of-the-pack, don’t work on Tuesdays. Content to not be great like Tom Brady, who never took a day off and was always busting his ass to be great. He gave his life over to it.
And that’s Kirk Cousins‘ prerogative. But the reality is, you’re not gonna win a Super Bowl. You’re not gonna carry a team to the Super Bowl if you’re obsessively protective of your own schedule, and you’re not working one day per week during football season, when you got eight months off, and the rest of your life to not play football.
There’s undoubtedly some merit to what he’s saying. A football player’s life is incredibly intense from August until February. Training camp is a grind. They have to be locked in when they’re in the film room and are under constant scrutiny throughout the season. But much of that pressure dissipates once the season ends, and they get more time off than the average worker. And football careers are short. Even someone like Cousins, 35, has only so many years to win a championship. Why not make the most of it?
Netflix’s documentary series Quarterback was generally favorable for Cousins. His Q rating measurably improved after it launched. Executives and coaches think more highly of him. He came off as an everyman, goofy but incredibly tough. Someone who played through a rib injury and gets extensive work done to convalesce for the next week. Cousins listens to play calls in the car to memorize them and gets his brain scanned to ensure he’s as focused as possible.
Cousins says he has a gift to play quarterback and wants to maximize it. He knows he has a 1-3 record in the playoffs, and Cousins wants to win a championship before he retires. The Vikings have done everything they can to help him do that. They drafted Justin Jefferson, traded for T.J. Hockenson, and have two good tackles. They also feed their players nutritious food, have a cutting-edge training staff, and have a state-of-the-art facility to practice in. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has said that tanking is unconscionable. By all accounts, they’re all in.
So why isn’t Cousins in Eagan on Tuesdays? He says he wants to spend that time with his family. Some people saw him walking around his neighborhood with his wife and applauded him for it. Others asked why Cousins, who many coaches and executives don’t consider a top-10 quarterback, isn’t putting in extra time to improve. Both sides are correct in that players should avoid burnout and spend time with their families, but they also have a limited opportunity to win a championship.
It’s just kind of funny that this aspect of the Netflix documentary continues to reverberate throughout the fanbase. Cousins got his brain scanned with his wife and has a secret room in his house. He quoted Margaret Thatcher. Beyond that, a lot is going on at camp that isn’t Cousins-related. Ivan Pace Jr. is showing out as an undrafted free-agent linebacker! Jordan Addison’s hands and route running looked great in the first preseason game! Josh Metellus is evolving from a special-teamer into a safety the Vikings are excited about!
But ultimately, much of Minnesota’s fate rests on Cousins’ play. Will he take a step forward in his second year under Kevin O’Connell? Can he maximize Jefferson’s otherworldly abilities? Will he do enough to get the Vikings to extend him beyond this season? That’s understandable. Still, Cousins has always prepared meticulously before games. He usually makes the right read. Anyone who’s heard his postgame press conferences knows he’s a perfectionist. Cousins has a near-photographic memory of what happened on each play and how he erred. It eats at him when he makes mistakes.
Cousins does everything by the book. He studies the tape and can explain his reasoning on each throw. He has arm strength and accuracy. As we learned from the video of him dancing on the team plane, the guy is in pretty good shape. The chief frustration with Cousins is that he doesn’t improvise. He doesn’t take risks often enough, like throwing deep downfield and trusting his receiver. He almost relies on his preparation too much. It’s reasonable to question what a player is doing in between games. However, with Cousins, it’s never about what he does during the week. It’s always what he does on Sundays.
