Earlier this week, Minnesota Vikings’ star wide receiver Justin Jefferson made headlines when he excluded teammate Kirk Cousins from his list of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL right now.
The NFL’s 2022 receiving leader listed Patrick Mahomes (Kansas City Chiefs), Aaron Rodgers (New York Jets), Joe Burrow (Cincinnati Bengals), Jalen Hurts (Philadelphia Eagles) and Josh Allen (Buffalo Bills) as his top five quarterbacks in the NFL right now.
While practically every football fan, scout, analyst and coach would agree that Cousins isn’t a top-five quarterback in the game, many still found it noteworthy that Jefferson didn’t even pretend to consider his teammate one of the NFL’s active top-five QBs.
During an appearance on KFAN-FM 100.3 in Minneapolis (h/t John Breech of CBS Sports), Cousins reacted to Jefferson omitting him from his list of the game’s top-five quarterbacks. Cousins kept it classy and clearly holds no hard feelings toward his teammate.
“I didn’t even see it. This is the first time hearing about it…
“As a competitor, you’d always want that. People have to be honest and share what they think and I’m not going to tell somebody what they need to think. Hopefully in 2024, I’ll be on his list. We’ll see what we can do this year.”
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Cousins is entering his sixth season with the Vikings. Though he’s put up Pro Bowl numbers during his tenure in The Gopher State, the fact is that the Vikings have only won a single postseason game under his watch (the 2019 NFC Wild Card Round).
The Vikings were two months removed from a 2017 NFC Championship Game appearance when they signed Cousins in 2018 free agency. When they signed him, the Vikings clearly had a Super Bowl-or-bust mentality.
If Cousins can pull off the improbable and lead Minny to the Lombard Trophy this upcoming season, perhaps some (including Jefferson) will consider him a top-five quarterback. That’s easier said than done, of course.
