NBC Sports' Chris Simms has Kirk Cousins of the Minnesota Vikings behind Daniel Jones of the New York Giants on his 2023 quarterback rankings.
Heading into the 2022 season, no one with their head on straight would have even made the argument that New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones is a better signal-caller than Kirk Cousins of the Minnesota Vikings.
But after a 2022 campaign in which Jones helped lead the Giants to the playoffs for the first time since 2016, some actually believe he is a better quarterback than Cousins. Among the group that follows this train of thought is NBC Sports' Chris Simms, who confirmed this belief of his when recently he revealed the latest portion of his 2023 quarterback rankings.
We’ve reached the TOP 10 in Chris Simms’ top 40 QB countdown. 🙌
— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) June 2, 2023
Thoughts on No. 9-13?! 👀 pic.twitter.com/kLGAFr1rH9
On what planet is New York Giants QB Daniel Jones better than Minnesota Vikings QB Kirk Cousins?
Sure, Jones had the best season of his short NFL career in 2022. However, that wasn't even enough for him to earn a selection to the NFC Pro Bowl roster.
Obviously, the Pro Bowl is not the measuring stick for player performance that it used to be, but not making the roster is still very telling about how the public and the league feels about a certain player. Unlike Jones, Cousins was actually part of last season's NFC Pro Bowl roster.
Aside from the Pro Bowl nod, Cousins is also coming off of one of the best seasons of his NFL career. His final numbers were slightly down from the last few years, but this was due to Minnesota head coach Kevin O'Connell pushing the quarterback to take more chances in 2022. This paid off, as Cousins ended up leading the Vikings to eight fourth-quarter comebacks last season.
Some might point to Jones' offering more as a rusher for why he should be ranked higher than Cousins. But even with his seven rushing touchdowns, he still accounted for fewer touchdowns (22) than Cousins did last season (31).
Cousins also threw for over 4,500 yards in 2022, something Jones has never even come close to doing in his pro career. The Giants quarterback did set a single-season career-high for passing yards last season, but it was still only 3,205 yards.
So was Jones better in 2022 than he ever has been in his NFL career? Yes, of course, no one is debating that. But it still shouldn't have been good enough for anyone to list Jones higher than Cousins when ranking all of the quarterbacks in the league heading into the 2023 campaign.