“Joe Burrow is the anti-Kirk Cousins.”
That’s what NBC Sports NFL insider and creator of ProFootballTalk.com Mike Florio said when appearing on Twin Cities radio station KFAN FM 100.3 on Wednesday, which prompted 9-to-Noon host Paul Allen to apologize on Twitter.
Originally thought to be a tongue-in-cheek lashing of the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, Florio made clear that he was dead serious.
After the segment ended, Paul said that "it was all somewhat tongue-in-cheek" from me. It was not.
— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) January 25, 2023
So what was all said? It was far more than Florio saying Joe Burrow is better than Kirk Cousins. Florio barked a passionate argument for why he thinks Cousins just doesn’t have the moxie to lead the Vikings, or any team for that matter, to the promised land.
“When the lights get bright,” Florio began, “you know, this is a very real human dynamic. You’ve got one game, your whole season is riding on it. Do you crumble or do you rise? Joe Burrow rises. Kirk crumbles. I’m sorry, but it’s true. And I’m starting to put Josh Allen in the Kirk category.”
He continued: “Kirk doesn’t have it. You can take your rose-colored glasses and shove them up your butt,” Florio said to Allen, who has been the radio play-by-play announcer for the Vikings for the last two-plus decades.
“The checkdown shorty to Hockenson, does not a crumble make,” Allen replied, referencing the 4th-and-8 play in the fourth quarter of Minnesota’s playoff loss to the Giants in which Cousins threw short to Hockenson to seal the home loss.
“There are moments, there are opportunities. They are fleeting. Those moments that kids dream about, when they’re counting the clock down, it’s the last play of the game; you wait all your life for that moment. When that moment arrives, what do you do? There’s a consistency. Some guys step up, some guys don’t,” said Florio. “Short of the sticks. You got Justin Jefferson out there – a finalist for MVP – and you don’t throw him the ball? I don’t care if he’s double-covered.”
https://twitter.com/TylerIrelandNFL/status/1618403383672721410
