There were many reasons why the Minnesota Vikings lost to the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night but there are still analysts who continue to pin all Vikings failures on Kirk Cousins.
Cousins threw for 366 yards and four touchdowns against the Eagles, but that apparently wasn’t enough for CBS Sports analyst Bill Reiter, who said Cousins is “fraudulent” despite his big numbers.
“If you don’t watch a game, if you look at a box score, it can be fraudulent like Kirk Cousins,” Reiter explained. “…You can look at the box score, you can see the touchdowns and the completions and the yards…350 yards and four touchdowns and no picks and to lose is called ‘The Kirk Cousins.'”
Reiter’s rant is strange in that he is the first one to refer such a game as “The Kirk Cousins” but he continued to go off claiming that he didn’t play well in the first half of the game.
“He is fool’s gold,” Reiter said. “Don’t buy the stats and don’t believe the apologists today [that say] ‘Cousins played well!’ and ‘the pressure of coming back’ and ‘he almost did it!’ There is no pressure when you’re [down] 27-7 in the second half of a game. The Vikings knew they had lost and the moment the game was over in the third quarter, that’s when Kirk Cousins started to play well.”
Kirk Cousins is an illusion and the Vikings are going nowhere fast. @sportsreiter l #Skol l #NFL l #NFLTwitter l @CBSSports l @NFLonCBS
Full take: https://t.co/B0eIFs3sVb pic.twitter.com/iv2KDm9ScA
— Infinity Sports Network (@InfSportsNet) September 15, 2023
For what it’s worth, Cousins was 15 of 21 with 108 yards and a touchdown when the Vikings fell behind 27-7. He also had a crucial fumble when Josh Sweat blew past Oli Udoh, setting up the Eagles for a touchdown to go ahead 20-3 early in the third quarter.
Reiter then shouted a familiar refrain not only for Cousins but also about the Vikings.
“The takeaway is that’s who the Vikings are,” Reiter said. “They’re not winning the NFC North. I don’t know if it’s going to be Detroit or Green Bay or the Bears but it isn’t going to be the Vikings. Even if it were, and it won’t be, they’re not going to be winning multiple playoff games. Kirk Cousins can not get you that deep in the postseason and if he wins a playoff game, it’s the highlight of his career. He is fool’s gold.”
“Kirk Cousins isn’t very good. The end,” Reiter concluded.
Reiter, whose radio show is called “Reiter Than You,” also admitted that his fantasy team played against Cousins, which could be the basis for his rant but diatribes like this will continue to be common until Cousins and the Vikings can overcome their primetime and late-season demons.
