The NFL season officially kicks off this Thursday, and if you’re a fan, you’re excited.
With the start of the season, it brings all kinds of predictions. Who will win divisions, which teams will be in the conference championships, who will make and win the Super Bowl, which rookies will win offensive and rookie of the year, defensive player of the year, and MVP?
For the most part, there is an almost consensus group for each category to win each award. It’s not that often that someone outside of the consensus group wins an award.
NFL HOFer Michael Irvin doesn’t care, though. The former Cowboy made his picks for this year’s awards, and there’s one name that doesn’t really seem like it belongs.
It’s Kirk Cousins.
Yes, that Kirk Cousins.
Here is the outlook on Cousins this season.
Appreciation for or skepticism of Kirk Cousins is often in the eye of the beholder. But even his fiercest defenders and most ardent detractors come from their assessments with some sense of pragmatism.
Even if you like Cousins, you likely concede that he is not in the very top tier of NFL quarterbacks occupied by future Hall of Famers like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. And even if you dislike Cousins, you likely concede that he is far from being the worst option in the league.
Instead, the debate about Cousins often comes down to which part of that squishy middle tier of quarterbacks he belongs. If you interpret Cousins’ statistics one way and believe in his ability, you might think he is as high as the 7-10 range. If you look at things another way, you might think he is as low as the 17-20 range.
Complicating matters is that Cousins is being paid like a top-10 quarterback, and while that shouldn’t really cloud our perspective of his performance it of course does just that.
It is interesting, then, to note that one statistical model places Cousins firmly in the upper part of that middle tier heading into the 2022 season.
A look at FiveThirtyEight’s ELO ratings for quarterbacks shows Cousins at No. 9 overall among his peers. The usual suspects are at the top: Josh Allen of the Bills is No. 1, followed by Patrick Mahomes, Rodgers and Brady.
But getting to Cousins by No. 9 means he’s ahead of some pretty big names like Kyler Murray, Russell Wilson and Lamar Jackson.
Irvin will be on TV a lot so he’ll for sure get to explain his pick but Twitter isn’t loving it and let him know.
Flip the page to see the reactions.
