Top QB’s Are Paid to be Clutch.

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Photo: Star Tribune

If your team is trailing 31-30 with 1:36 left in the 4th quarter and you have no timeouts remaining, who is the quarterback you’d want to pay to be in that clutch spot? Would it be Kirk Cousins? That’s who the Minnesota Vikings chose.

Patrick Mahomes, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, those are some of the first names that come to mind. Even the older vets like Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady are up there. The best QB’s make the best money. Mahomes, Wilson, Brees, Rodgers, Roethlisberger and Brady all rank top-10 in highest-paid QB salaries (by year-over-year average)

When you pay a substantial amount of money to a quarterback, it not only speaks to the high cost of maintaining that position, but also the anticipatory characteristics that you expect from that big money QB. You’re paying for the trust. You’re paying for the comfort… for that feeling in crunch time that reassures you, ‘some way, somehow, this QB is going to get us down the field and we’re going to win this game.’

Kirk Cousins Ain’t It.

As foreshadowed in the opening paragraph, the Vikings chose their QB 2.5 years ago. Now, down 31-30 to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday afternoon, with just 1:36 remaining in the 4th quarter and no timeouts, Kirk Cousins is who steps into the huddle.

Minnesota is paying Kirk Cousins $33 million per year, which puts him in an economic class with all of the QB’s we mentioned above. One would expect similar feelings and results as what you see from the Brees’ and Wilson’s of the NFL, right? Wrong. Instead, we’re wondering how we can run him out of town.

I have absolutely ZERO faith in “Big Moment” Kirk Cousins. Be honest with yourself. When the Vikings got the ball back, down one point yesterday, how confident were you feeling about Cousins taking the Vikings 40 yards and into field goal range?

Personally, I would’ve picked 20 other QBs, over Kirk, in that spot. Seriously, I don’t have hope that our $33M QB can guide our football team down the field during crunch time. On 4th and LONG during that last drive, I expected Kirk to check it down to CJ Ham just to boost his completion percentage.

Nobody Fears Kirk When He Steps on the Field in Any Moment.

There’s an insatiable feeling of fear, when the opposing defense sees Aaron Rodgers strut onto the field (especially when the game’s on the line) with that Grinch-like smirk on his ugly face. When crunch time occurs, the best quarterbacks live for the moment. Cousins gets paid to live fro that moment, but when that moment actually arrives, he dies. Sunday represented yet another example of why people can’t take Cousins seriously as a top-paid quarterback.

The Vikings even caught another break on that drive, when the first play was flagged for hitting Kirk Cousins in the helmet. But then, Garrett Bradbury snapped the ball when Cousins wasn’t ready, the Vikings lost 14 yards and that was all she wrote. If anything goes wrong, it’s all over but the crying.

“Get What You Pay For” is Dead

At a young age, my dad taught me a valuable lesson, “you get what you pay for.” I guess he forgot to tell me there was one exception, when you’re paying for NFL quarterbacks like Kirk Cousins. Minnesota Vikings fans should have a feeling of confidence, when their $33 million quarterback takes the field in a must-win game.

But that’s not how anyone feels when that QB is Kirk Cousins.

Stephen Strom | Minnesota Sports Fan

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