Consistent. Accurate. Tough. Durable. Cerebral.
That’s Kirk Cousins in a nutshell, according to Minnesota Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who spoke Tuesday at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis.
“He’s an incredibly consistent passer,” said Adofo-Mensah. “I don’t think people realize that essentially every play has a result built into it based on factors that he can’t control. And I think what you know about Kirk is when the odds are shifted in his favor, he gets the most out of it. And I don’t think people appreciate that skill enough. He’s incredibly consistent, incredibly accurate thrower. Tough. He’s durable, he plays every game. He stands in there and takes those hits when those throws are a little harder to come by. He’s an incredible player. Really cerebral.”
Did you catch that part in the middle where he said Cousins is a stud “when the odds are shifted in his favor”?
Minutes later, a follow-up question was asked about Cousins’ ability to succeed when the odds aren’t in his favor. Adofo-Mensah, whose answers are as smooth as the stones Cousins keeps in a glass vase to remind him about the delicacy of life, brought up a Superman reference one of his mentors taught him.
“He talked about quarterback needing to know when to be Superman and when to be Clark Kent. A lot of times you can actually be bad being too much Superman. It’s not just what happens when the play breaks down, but your ability to get us to the next down,” he said.
“As a quarterback you hold all of our hopes, our dreams, our livelihoods with the ball. We want somebody to take that risk but also understand the importance of taking smart decisions. So it’s just combining all of that together and figuring out which way gets you the best way forward.”
Adofo-Mensah’s comments about Cousins being great “when the odds are in his favor” could well link in to comments made by new head coach Kevin O’Connell during his opening press conference, in which he said “part of our job” is to set up the offense in a way that maximizes Cousins’ talents.
But it still leaves the door open for questions. Maybe Adofo-Mensah is excited to work with him and maybe even restructure and lengthen Cousins’ contract. Or maybe he’s talking him up every chance he gets in an effort to increase his trade value.
Remember, O’Connell has had plenty of praise for Cousins, but has left some wiggle room when it comes to committing to him.
O’Connell has said that he’s “anticipating Kirk being a part of what we do,” which would’ve been a step towards confirming Cousins as his guy, but then he failed to give a definitive answer when he was asked point blank about Cousins by Chard Hartman on WCCO Radio last week.
“I can tell you, training camp is a long way away in my mind from standpoint of what any position may look like. I do appreciate the question, but I think we’ve got to look at things in a short-term way of just how we build this thing for what’s going to come during the season. Training camp will obviously be a huge part of that as we build towards that first football game,” O’Connell said.
The Combine is just getting ramped up so there could be a boatload of rumors from Indy this week, and then the football world will go nuts for a week or two when the new league year begins Mar. 16.
