An Unemployed RGIII Knows How Kirk Cousins Thinks
Dustin Baker
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Robert Griffin III and Kirk Cousins were teammates for three seasons in the nation’s capital. Hell, the two men were selected out of the same draft in 2012.
Out of the gate, Griffin was the showstopper, guiding the Washington Football team to a 10-6 season in 2012 — which was a big damn deal at the time. Washington was starved for success, and Griffin was The Chosen One to create it — for a season. He injured his LCL and MCL late in that season while impressing enough voters to win the 2012 Offensive Rookie of the Year award.
After that, Griffin was never really the same. He tried to mount a comeback in 2013 but was a shell of himself, accruing a 3-10 record for his team as the starter in 2013. Griffin eventually missed gobs of time to more leg injuries, enabling reservist signal-caller Kirk Cousins to take the reins.
Cousins became the full-time starter in 2015 for Washington, passing for 4,000+ yards and 29 touchdown passes (numbers Griffin failed to reach, even when healthy). The Michigan State alumnus never looked back.
Since becoming QB1 for the Football Team and then the Vikings in 2018, Cousins has not missed a game to injury. Griffin, on the other hand, has started just seven games since 2015, donning the colors of AFC teams with the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens.
Somewhere along the line, Griffin evidently grew disillusioned with Cousins — as evidenced recently by his strange pot-shot comments about his former teammate.
On a show for Bleacher Report following the 2021 NFL Draft, Griffin said about Minnesota drafting Texas A&M’s Kellen Mond:
“I can tell you right now that No. 8 in Minnesota is not real happy right now because Kellen Mond represents exactly what he doesn’t do well. Kellen Mond is the big, physical quarterback. He can run it, throw it all over the field, and I don’t think that’s something that No. 8 is able to do in Minnesota. But, I think that’s what the coaching staff and administration is looking for […] As you’ve seen, Cousins has been collecting checks there in Minnesota for a long time, taking them to 8-8, 9-7 seasons. If he has a bad start to the year like he did last year, I could see the fans and maybe the organization leaning toward Mond if he comes in and impresses.“
Griffin is certainly entitled to opinions about Cousins and Mond, but these assertions were without provocation. One might think a former teammate would be supportive in a scenario like this — rather than assuring listeners that Cousins is spooked by a modern marvel that does everything that he cannot.
Too, Griffin claims that Cousins takes the Vikings to “8-8 and 9-7” seasons as a matter of routine. The Vikings, under Cousins, have finished 8-7-1 (2018), 10-6 (2019), and 7-9 (2020). Perhaps that’s nitpicky, but the Cousins-led Vikings have not finished 8-8 or 9-7.
Naysayers often label Cousins as an “8-8” quarterback — even though the 32-year-old has never been a part of a team that finished 8-8. And for clarity, a Cousins-led team never will finish 8-8 as the NFL has expanded to a 17-game season that inaugurates in 2021.
Griffin may indeed be correct that Mond is the long-term answer for Minnesota. That’s the rationale for selecting a quarterback with relatively high draft capital. Yet, to surmise that Cousins “isn’t happy” is totally speculative hearsay. Cousins might love a young man, he may despise everything about Mond, or somewhere in between.
If Cousins is peeved that Mond is nipping at his heels, he’s sure masking it well: