Kirk Cousins spoke out on the start of his NFL career with the Washington Commanders.
Kirk Cousins never quite earned his stay with the team that drafted him in 2012.
Cousins was the Washington Commanders‘ contingency plan for the second-overall pick Robert Griffin III and revealed he didn’t expect to even be on the team past training camp his rookie year.
But as Griffin struggled with injuries, Cousins got more and more chances to prove his worth in the NFL, winning the starting job outright in the final year of his rookie deal in 2015.
The Commanders were never fully sold on Cousins, franchise-tagging him the next two seasons before the 2018 offseason.
Cousins made a bet on himself, testing free agency that year, but also wasn’t determined to leave Washington. He considered returning on a deal that was right for him. That was until the Commanders came out of the blue and made a blockbuster offer to Alex Smith, signing the former No. 1 overall pick to a four-year, $94 million contract.
Cousins eventually landed in Minnesota, and after years and flashes of potential, the Vikings may now be realizing just that.
The Cousins-led Vikings are off to a 7-1 start at the midpoint of the 2022 season after a 20-17 comeback victory over Washington on Sunday, November 6.
After making his first visit to FedExField in Landover, Maryland, Cousins spoke out on his homecoming and his past with the Commanders.
Kirk Cousins Says the Commanders ‘Felt Like a Dead End’
In a November 7 edition of Sports Illustrated insider Albert Breer’s Monday Morning Quarterback, Cousins spoke out about the revenge game narrative being spun surrounding his return to Washington.
“Mike Shanahan drafted me, and at the time, it felt like a dead end going there, when they’d drafted a quarterback second overall,” Cousins told Breer. “I remember Kyle Shanahan telling me the day after I was drafted, ‘Our goal is to have you play well in preseason, and then we’ll trade you.’ It felt like a dead end going there. Then to look back and realize that I probably wouldn’t be where I am, talking to you, if I hadn’t have gone there?”
At this stage in his career, Cousins has looked back on his time with the Commanders as foundational for his career with the pedigree of coaches he encountered.
“To get coached by Mike and Kyle and Matt [LaFleur] and Sean [McVay] and Mike McDaniel and Jay Gruden, and to play with Jordan Reed and Pierre Garçon, DeSean Jackson, Vernon Davis, Brandon Scherff, all these guys, I’m just so grateful that I got to go there and grow with that system, play with those players. Very, very fortunate to end up there,” Cousins added. “A lot of careers can be ruined just simply by where you end up in the draft and who you’re coached by and the players you have around you. It was the opposite for me.”
With Cousins enjoying the best start in his career, the new regime in Minnesota is reveling in the kind of commitment to Cousins the Commanders never made.
New Vikings Regime Hits Double Down on Kirk Cousins
When general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah arrived in Minnesota in January, the new general manager could have torn down the roster and put his stamp on the team.
Instead, he followed a different path and found a head coach who could put that plan into action.
Adofo-Mensah hired Kevin O’Connell, who was tasked with getting more out of Cousins and the Vikings roster. They opted to keep franchise players like Harrison Smith, Eric Kendricks, Danielle Hunter and Adam Thielen in the building. And, with their final move before free agency, they extended Cousins through the 2023 season and ended any idea he would once again find himself in a contract year after having to prove it time and time again in Washington.
It’s panned out well for Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell so far with the Vikings a virtual lock to win the NFC North this season. FiveThirtyEight has Minnesota with a 98% chance of winning the division with their current 3.5-game lead over the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears.
But what’s really changed in Minnesota, or Cousins?
The new culture could be playing a considerable role in the Vikings “winning in the margins” as O’Connell says.
Cousins admitted he doesn’t believe Minnesota is playing better than it did last season, and his numbers follow that argument. He’s posted a career-low 50.5 QBR as a starter this season and isn’t racking up the garbage time stats as his past critiques would suggest.
Instead, the Vikings have played teams close and owned their newfound identity as “situational masters,” including Cousins. He’s led a career-high four comeback, game-winning drives in the fourth quarter this season with nine games remaining.
“Last year, we struggled to find those inches,” Cousins said. “We’ve been able to find them. I think we’ve actually probably not played as well this year as we probably did last year through eight games, but we found the inches at the end, and that’s been the difference.”