Vikings GM defends Cousins/2020, Misses Point

Spielman defends Cousins, misses point

Most weeks a struggling quarterback would welcome supportive words from the general manager who controls his future (or is it the other way around for Kirk Cousins and Rick Spielman?). This week? Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins may have been better off not having his name attached to general manager Rick Spielman. 

After a disastrous loss to the Atlanta Falcons brought the Vikings’ record to 1-5, and a trade of Yannick Ngakoue for less than they gave up to trade for him under two months ago, most people have soured on Spielman and his decision making capabilities.

By reminding everyone of Cousins and his contract, he essentially just made things worse, as a big reason that a lot of people are calling for his job is that he extended (or him signed, period) Cousins for insane guaranteed money before the team went into a multi-season rebuild. 

Spielman said of Cousins and the criticism he’s received:

“You just kind of have to go back and look at the big picture. But I don’t think anyone has lost any faith in Kirk Cousins. I expect him to come back after the bye week and play well for us.”

Ugh.

Now, by big picture I’m sure he’s hinting towards Cousins stats in 2018 and 2019, especially the latter season (one in which he knocked down a ton of the negative narratives that have surrounded him and also helped lead the team to a massive upset victory in the Bayou).

 BUt by being vague he sounds vague and out of touch with what people are actually upset about. The other big picture is what I described above. That the team is going to be paying Cousins $45 million guaranteed in 2022, which means they’ll be unable to trade, cut or bench him and also that they might miss out on a better draft pick and thus future because they didn’t just commit to the rebuild. 

Why?

Self preservation, mostly. Both Zimmer and Spielman’s contracts were up for renewal after this season and after an embarrassing loss in San Francisco and an off-season of blood letting on defense, they had to attempt to persuade ownership and fans that this was an improvement/retool/not a rebuild. 

Spielman also said in chatting with the Strib’s Ben Goessling TODAY that… Well just read it:

“No one thinks the season’s over right now . . . You want to win as many games as we can, and that’s going to be our objective for the year. But also, when you have an opportunity to continue to add, with the 15 draft picks, you’re seeing most of them having to play right now

There’s no doubt after today’s action that it is indeed a rebuild, one that could take years to complete. With Spielman showing how out of touch he is, he’s adding fuel to the fire that is people’s concerns regarding his ability to direct that rebuild (with or without Zimmer).

On Cousins, Spielman continued:

“I know he’s very hard on himself, Some of the interceptions were not his fault. Some of them were poor decisions. But I don’t have any doubt that he’s going to be able to rally.”

But should he rally? 

Let’s just take the above as true. That’s exactly why you don’t extend Cousins, someone who was brought in to get a specific roster over the hump. While I do believe there’s a lot of revisionist history regarding why that hump wasn’t summited (Cousins was in the MVP conversation last season for a reason, while the line was yet again bottom-5 and the defense was a shell of its former self), it’s clear that things aren’t working right now more often than not, but as he showed (outside of one errant pass after halftime) in Seattle he can win meaningless/disastrous games.

With the Vikings in a rebuild, they need to lose as many games as possible (especially with rumors of the Jets fully committing to the TankforTrevor game plan method). By extending and defending Cousins, Spielman is showing yet again that even if they did end up with the top pick the team would probably trade down for more 7th-round picks and use the money not spent on a 1st-round pick on extending Cousins. 

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