Kirk Cousins not viewed as a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback

Colin Cowherd recently revealed his current Super Bowl-caliber quarterbacks in the NFL and he didn’t include Minnesota Vikings passer Kirk Cousins.

This offseason, the Minnesota Vikings decided to bring the majority of their core players from the 2021 campaign, including quarterback Kirk Cousins, back to take another shot at contending for a championship.

Despite the Vikings missing the playoffs in three of the last four years, the team’s ownership and the new coaching staff believe they already have the pieces to contend in the NFC next season.

However, not everyone is a believer in Cousins leading Minnesota to a title next season. Most recently, Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd explained why he doesn’t consider the Vikings’ current starting signal-caller a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback.

Is Kirk Cousins capable of carrying the Minnesota Vikings to a Super Bowl?

Cowherd recently revealed his list of current NFL passers that he believes are Super Bowl-caliber. This list includes Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford, Derek Carr, and Deshaun Watson.

Two notable quarterbacks, Cousins and Dak Prescott, are absent from this list, and Cowherd attempted to explain on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” why these two are missing from his selections.

"“I’ve always said Dak [Prescott] and Kirk Cousins need really special players around them to elevate them.When you give [Cousins] Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook and Justin Jefferson, he gets 100 yards rushing, and pass protection, Cousins can win a lot of games.Dak and Kirk Cousins, I know they’re expensive, but they’re good NFL quarterbacks. I like both. [But] I like Derek Carr a lot more. Derek Carr has shown an ability to carry chaos to the playoffs.”"

Cowherd isn’t wrong with these statements. Since 2020, the Vikings are 6-9 when Dalvin Cook rushes for under 100 yards in a game, and they are 5-7 when Cousins is sacked at least three times in a matchup.

Cowherd mentioned how Derek Carr was able to still lead the Las Vegas Raiders to the playoffs last season despite all of the chaos that the franchise dealt with on and off of the field.

Would the same outcome still take place if Cousins was the starting quarterback for the Raiders in 2021 and not Carr? If you ask Cowherd, he believes that answer would be no.