Kirk Cousins and the Power of Intangibles

As you may have read on this site previously, I am not a fan of Kirk Cousins. Well, let me rephrase that, I am not a fan of Kirk Cousins…as a football player. He seems like a totally decent human being. Yeah, he beat my Hawkeyes last year, but I really can’t fault him for that. Also, he lost a few before that, so there is no animosity towards him for that.

But, I just don’t get it. People say he is a “leader.” People also talk about how he is a “winner.” He is not some epic winning quarterback who needs to be hailed as a savior, because Michigan State didn’t win that much with him at quarterback. And as for the leader part, nobody gives a shit how charismatic you are if you can’t back it up. If you’re not a good quarterback, nobody is going to care that you can wax poetically about the values of working hard and overcoming all obstacles.

Todd McShay and Trent Dilfer about had a heart attack when he was drafted by the Redskins, because he wasn’t going to have a chance to come in and compete for a starting job. This was in the fourth round of the draft. There was no team that was going to give him a shot to compete for a starting job right away. He came into his senior year talking about how he was going to have improved footwork, and he had the same shitty footwork as before. He makes a lot of dumb throws. His balls are not that accurate, and he was saved by good catches from Cunningham and Martin. He gives great speeches, but that doesn’t make him a great quarterback; it doesn’t even make him a great leader.

I think that too often, people fall in love with the person instead of the player. This is why we hear about intangibles. Danny Wuerffel was a winner, Craig Krenzel had intangibles coming out of his ass, but that didn’t make them great players, nor will Kirk Cousins’ intangibles help him win any football games at the next level. He was a good college quarterback, but there are major red flags with how that will translate to the next level. Personally, I’m going to weigh the things that I can see much more heavily than the things that I can’t.

Intangibles are great, but I’ll take tangibles over them every single time.