NFL Analyst Takes Bizarre Potshot at Kirk Cousins
The Minnesota Vikings weaseled into the win column Sunday, but not before real panic that the team would fall to 0-4.
Kevin O’Connell’s team defeated the Carolina Panthers 21-13, a season-saving win to perhaps kickstart a path toward reemergence.
NFL Analyst Takes Bizarre Potshot at Kirk Cousins
But while the Vikings trailed — Kirk Cousins threw a 99-yard pick-six to Panthers defender Sam Franklin Jr. in the first quarter — Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio took a bizarre shot at Cousins, continuing a lengthy beef with the Vikings QB1.
First, here was the Cousins interception:
And that folly was after the Vikings nearly grabbed a 7-0 lead, but a holding penalty negated a would-be Justin Jefferson touchdown
Following Cousins’ pick-six, Florio tweeted, “There’s no smoking gun that would ever prove it, but if a quarterback refuses to work on Tuesdays, he quite possibly misses the opportunity to, for example, see something on film that would keep him from throwing a 100-yard pick six on the first drive of the game.”
Florio, a Vikings fan, has a documented history of similar comments aimed at Cousins. He seems eager to end the Cousins era in Minneapolis, and the strange critique about “Tuesdays off” is just the latest.
Cousins was featured in the Quarterback docuseries this summer on Netflix, a television special including Patrick Mahomes and Marcus Mariota. The show walked through the on- and off-the-field lives of Cousins, Mahomes, and Mariota, and viewers learned that Cousins has Tuesdays off from practice. Most, if not all NFLers, have Tuesday off around the league, but quarterbacks are often expected to balk at the day off and show up at team facilities anyway.
So, Florio believed Cousins could’ve avoided the pick-six had he practiced last Tuesday — a zany take, to be sure.
Florio joined KFAN’s Paul Allen after the Vikings lost to the New York Giants in the playoffs eight months ago and voiced displeasure about Cousins’ performance, “Joe Burrow is the anti-Kirk Cousins. Joe Burrow is the guy who, like Kirk, will have a great season. But when the lights get bright, you’ve got one game, and your whole season is riding on it — do you crumble, or do you rise? Joe Burrow rises, Kirk crumbles.”
Of course, Burrow is playing like one of the worst quarterbacks in the sport through four games this season, but it’s crickets from the media on his performance.
“Kirk doesn’t have it. You can take your rose-colored glasses and shove them up your butt. Kirk doesn’t have it,” Florio concluded in January about Cousins and the Vikings postseason loss.
Next up for Cousins and the Vikings? The Super Bowl champs in seven days at U.S. Bank Stadium.
Florio wrote about the matchup a few months ago, “Based on what we learned about Mahomes in the Quarterback series, there’s another potential element at play here. Week Five. Chiefs at Vikings. Mahomes is smart enough to say nothing that will make Cousins circle that game even more aggressively than he already has. Look at how Mahomes worked pass rushers in the Quarterback series. He admitted that he routinely compliments them on their efforts because he wants them to like him, so that they won’t be inclined to try to hit him harder than they do.”
Remember that observation, per Florio, for Vikings-Chiefs in Week 5.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sal Spice. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band).
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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