Kirk Cousins on Vikings Offensive Line: “If I Die, I Die”

Minnesota quarterback reflects on team's pass protection ahead of NFL Draft

By Isaac Huss

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA -- Tomorrow is the NFL Draft, and Kirk Cousins knows what’s at stake. He also knows his Minnesota Vikings’ front office has a thing for drafting defensive backs early and often. And often at the expense of his porous offensive line.

“Listen, if I die, I die,” Cousins said, while taking a break from practicing his next big gender reveal [his wife isn’t pregnant, he just wasn’t satisfied with his accuracy on the last one]. “I’m at peace about that. I know my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I have a close, personal relationship with Dakota Dozier. If Coach Zimmer wants to draft d-backs with all ten picks tomorrow -- and he might -- well, at least I know there’ll be a big house waiting for me in the sky.”

Minnesota’s offensive line unit, while excelling in opening holes in the run game for tailback Dalvin Cook, has struggled blocking for Cousins on pass plays since he arrived three years ago. The Vikings have since cut perhaps their best player in the group, left tackle Riley Rieff, in a cost-saving measure, and retained Dozier, one of the worst pass blockers in the league a year ago. Cousins seems unfazed.

“Survival of the fittest, I always say -- and if you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty darn fit,” Kirk said, which has been fact-checked as “True” by his wife (Snopes has rated it Somewhat True). “I want to respect what other people's concerns are. I know my mom had been tweeting at Zim from her burner account, ‘TonkaLoveBoat69,’ all offseason to trade for Orlando Brown. Not me. I'm gonna let nature do its course. And just to say, if Aaron Donald knocks me out, he knocks me out. I'm going to be OK. I think.”

Cousins was then asked, on a scale of 1-10, how worried he was about the Vikings taking a QB in the first round to replace him -- not unlike the Packers did last year with Jordan Love -- with one being Patrick Mahomes and ten being Jimmy Garoppalo. Cousins responded, "I'm not gonna call anybody stupid, for the trouble it would get me in. But I'm about a .000001. It’s not like there’s a Christian Ponder in this draft, am I right?”

Any great player who's gonna come in and work! Who are you all thinking? Reply @Verizon with #NFLDraft #VerizonPartner https://t.co/7KIMWrFkBa

— Kirk Cousins (@KirkCousins8) April 29, 2021

He went on to say: "But seriously, I have peace. I don't believe that I control the outcome of my life. Why do you think I got a fully-guaranteed contract? Other than the Vikings being weirdly desperate for a slightly above-average QB. Oh and the fact that I used the Jets as leverage to drive up the price. Good times. But I digress…”

“It’s because there's many things out of my control. I trust the Lord to handle things. If something happens, I trust him to have a plan and purpose. So if Rick (Spielman, the Vikings’ GM) wants to draft an edge rusher named “Kwity” or a cornerback named “Lousy” or a linebacker named “B1G” or a quarterback named “Mac” or heck if he wants to trade all his picks for 500 7th rounders next year, I’ll be at peace. Actually, Rick, please don’t pick Mac. Have you not seen him with his shirt off? He’d destroy our vibe.”

Kirk then returned to gender reveal practice, proceeded to drop back and toss his mini exploding football into a phone booth fifty yards away, do some undistinguishable dance (definitely not the griddy? we think?), and scream “YOU LIKE THAT! YOU LIKE THAT!” at his smokin’ hot wife.

PATERNO, GAGLIARDI, AND THE DEMISE OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FOOTBALL COACH

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Joe Paterno, God rest him, passed away last week, and the resounding sentiment seemed to be, “what a shame.” The legendary Penn State football coach who seemed invincible only a few short months ago, leading his nationally-ranked Nittany Lions at the ripe old age of 86 and showing few signs of slowing down.

And then came the scandal.

Paterno was fired amidst allegations that his former top assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulted young boys even in the Penn State locker room while he served a prominent role at a local outreach to underprivileged boys. Since then, Paterno’s health had steadily declined up until his death on January 22.

Shame is the operative word here. There is unspeakable shame in the acts committed by Sandusky, and, undeniably, passed on to Paterno by association. There is even a case to be made that the way Paterno was dispatched from his job was shameful. And it’s certainly a shame to see a man who was responsible for so many good things decline in health so rapidly, perhaps as a result of the onslaught of negativity he received in the wake of the scandal.

His death offers another opportunity to reflect on what exactly happened that went so wrong, and why he was in the middle of the blame in the first place. St. John’s football coach John Gagliardi had that opportunity in a recent interview with the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Columnist Bob Sansevere asked him “How should Paterno be remembered?” This was Gagliardi’s response:

“I don't know why he even should have been connected to that thing (scandal). It's sad he's attached to that thing. I don't know all the (facts). He wasn't the guy, the culprit. I really feel pretty saddened about it.”

And so you begin to understand why we have scandals like this in the first place. I’m not sure Coach Gagliardi could come off as any more clueless, which itself isn’t a surprise if you’ve ever heard him interview before. Even a Tommie can admit that there is something endearing about Gagliardi’s off-the-wall take on life, which is mostly harmless overall. And certainly he’s a great coach, quite possibly one of the very best in the history of football.

So what does it matter that Gagliardi still seems to be wondering why Paterno received such backlash? Because it calls into question whether Gagliardi is in any way prepared or even capable of doing any better a job than Paterno did if ever faced with such a concern.

Earth to Gagliardi: Paterno “should have been connected” to the Penn State Football Scandal because Paterno was Penn State Football! Sandusky was accused of sexually assaulting vulnerable young boys in the Penn State LOCKER ROOM, and Paterno, as reports later showed, never felt the need to even personally approach Sandusky about it?

It should be noted that Paterno did pass the information on to his superiors, as is protocol. But the fact that he apparently did nothing more speaks much more loudly. Concerned only with protocol, and not with actually figuring out what the hell was going on, Paterno showed that he wasn’t really concerned at all.

It stands as a curious testament to how great our men and our institutions can be while being so very flawed and fragile at the same time. How could Paterno build up one of the greatest and most revered football programs in America, revered for not just wins and losses either but for much more, and yet at the same time failing in such a dramatic, and yet basic way? How could he be so adept at leading a football team to victory and yet so inept at leading that same organization in basic human morals and ethics?

Perhaps there’s no clear answer, but if Gagliardi’s interview is any indication, St. John’s football program might be suffering from the same schizophrenia. The fact of the matter is that Paterno took the fall, not for Sandusky’s sins as Gagliardi apparently still thinks, but for his own sins of standing by and doing essentially nothing.

Is it too much to ask a football coach? I sure hope not. Any football coach worth his clipboard is teaching much more than x’s and o’s: he teaches attention to detail. He teaches accountability. He teaches manly virtues like courage, fortitude, and selflessness. And if nothing else, he teaches the power of authority and obedience.

For a good football coach, nothing happens on the field, on the sidelines, and in the locker room that he doesn’t know about, that he doesn’t care a great deal about. Anything that goes wrong, he corrects. Anyone who resists his authority, he reprimands. Somehow, Joe Paterno failed in this most basic way.

Is it possible that sexual assaults were happening in his own locker room and he didn’t immediately know? Possible. But the moment he found out and he didn’t get right to the bottom of it, reprimand the culprits, make serious corrections and demand accountability, he failed as a football coach, not to mention as a human being.

The fact that a figure of Gagliardi’s stature seemingly fails to realize these basic tenets of leadership and the inherent accountability therein, should set alarms off. I sincerely hope that there is no coach, no university, or any other organization in the country that doesn’t take the time to re-evaluate what they are doing to ensure the Penn State scandal is the last of its kind.

As much as Joe Paterno’s hastened death is a shame, and as shameful as the entire Penn State scandal is, it would be a much greater shame if the best we can do is, “feel pretty saddened about it.”

Tim Tebow: Redefining the Dream

Like many young boys who grew watching professional sports, I dreamed of being a professional athlete. It seemed like the ultimate profession: not only could I play a game all day, I could get paid for it, and paid a lot for that matter, and if that wasn’t enough, I would be a celebrity, and I would be famous, and women would be screaming for my attention, and I would use my celebrity to help save the whales. My dream had it all: fun, fame, fortune, and females. What more could you possibly want?

Well, someone ought to tell Tim Tebow about what being a celebrity athlete is really all about. Apparently, he has made it to the top of the college football world without tapping into its bag of goodies that comes with sports superstardom. Here he is, in his fourth year of playing quarterback for the Florida Gators, two National Championships and a Heisman Trophy later, and he doesn’t seem to get it. Doesn’t he know he could be making millions in the NFL by now? In fact, he could have left the college ranks after his sophomore year and still would have gone down in history as one of the best college players of all time. Instead, he now is recovering from a concussion he sustained September 27 against the University of Kentucky.

Of course, everyone expects Tebow to bounce back from the injury with no ill effects, because up until this point, anyone who has ever been impressed by his success has ceased being surprised. Heck, even his birth was miraculous: according to his parents, “Timmy” should have died no less than four times before he was born because of a deadly illness his mother contracted on a missionary trip to the Philippines. Yes, his parents are missionaries. And yes, perhaps the greatest college quarterback ever is also a well-seasoned missionary himself, taking time every off-season to travel abroad to spread the Good News. And perform circumcisions. I’m not making this up.

Clearly, nothing holds Tim Tebow back. And yet, he has become an icon of restraint in the last year, beginning with his decision to return for his senior year of football, risking, or at least delaying, a pro career promising all of the spoils that every young boy dreams about at night. And yet perhaps his greatest feat of restraint is in a different arena: sex.

Back in July, as Tebow fielded questions at a preseason press conference, a reporter asked him if he, you know, was saving himself for marriage. His response was a lighthearted chuckle and a genuine smile, accompanied by nervous, yet slightly amused laughter from the other reporters in the room. The answer, of course, was “yes I am”, and the whole sports world stopped turning for a moment. Not necessarily because it was surprised, as the guy wrote “John 3:16” on his eye black during the national championship game in January. But the fact that the information was undeniably public now was enough to give pause to sports fans everywhere as they tried to make sense of such a thing.

Think about it: the guy is undeniably good looking, funny, charming, articulate, built like a horse, plays the hardest position in sports better than maybe anyone ever at the college level, is set to make millions the moment he takes his talent to the NFL, not to mention he is doing all of this at the University of Florida, which does not lack for eligible mega-babes, and he’s saving himself for marriage? It honestly is mind-blowing, most especially for a world who would be asking not one question, but two in response: Why?! How?!

The unbelievable nature of the story is only multiplied when you consider the modern culture in college football. It has become a relatively common occurrence for recruits who are visiting a campus to be treated to certain “local ladies” as a sort of foretaste of what life would be like as a member of the team. Sex is a foregone conclusion on college campuses today, and most especially for football players, who are the most eligible bachelors on campus, and many times are particularly sought out by groupies hoping to get close to a star. And so many times players are all too happy to oblige.

Not Timmy. He claims that football is fourth on his list, behind faith, family, and school, in that order (notice: premarital sex is not a priority). And when he says things like that, you almost expect him to say, “ha ha, just kidding,” not because he doesn’t sound sincere, but because he does. He doesn’t sound like a preacher, or an extremist, or even slightly annoyed when faced with cynicism. In fact, he seems to relish the opportunity just to share his faith:

“You know, there's a lot of leaders out there. But, unfortunately, there aren't a lot of good ones. So that's always been my dream and my goal...to be someone that a parent can say, 'Hey, this kid did it the right way.' That's always been my dream and my goal more so than winning a trophy or winning a championship.”

Sounds like he’s just living his dream.