Nothing flashy.
Grass. Not turf. Fading white lines. Rickety bleachers. Widened goal posts. A dark red logo that’s been kept up just enough to avoid blending into the verdure.
Not far away, the crystal blue waters of the great Lake Michigan lie, teeming below the stars at night. In the winter, if it gets cold enough, and the temperature passes the solidus, the molecules slow their petulant vibrations. The idle waters seize up, and all at once, a body of liquid is turned to a mammoth field of glossy ice. Its very state of matter altered in one moment.
A spectacular transformation.
This is Holland Christian. The home of the Maroons. The place where a legend sparked, and grew. Where an improbable rise to fame began. Where another spectacular transformation blossomed. Once maroon, now burgundy. A phase change of the ages. This is where Kirk Cousins got his start.
It’s nothing flashy. But sometimes there’s more there than what meets the eye. The same can be said for Kirk Cousins himself. Through every step of his football career, Cousins has been labeled as just that. Nothing flashy. He was a two star recruit coming out of high school. His draft profile on NFL.com in 2012, authored by Lance Zierlein, labeled him as a “game manager”.
And still, even after Cousins has usurped the Washington Redskins’ starting job and thrown for 99 touchdowns to 55 interceptions in three years, people still aren’t sold on him. Blind to the flashes of greatness that burn bright on the football field.
Almost six years after being drafted by the Washington Redskins, Kirk Cousins is on the verge of leaving. To take his legacy somewhere else. In his time in D.C., Cousins has effectively polarized a fanbase. Some believe he’s the savior of this franchise, and his presence will be missed more than anyone knows. Others dismiss him as a hinderance of progress, an obstacle in the way of true growth and continuity.
What Cousins truly is, and what he means to D.C. will not be known, in its entirety, until the time that he’s far gone. The time when fans may either miss him, or be glad that he’s taken his aspirations somewhere else.
No one seems to agree on Kirk Cousins, and whether he should stay or go. In those talks, you’ll find dollar signs and not much else. But on the football field, in the locker room, in the film room, and when no one else is working but him, we can all agree. Kirk Cousins’ impossible rise is unparalleled in history.
An impossible rise that, against all odds, became reality.
Kirk Cousins; Professional Pitcher
Professional pitcher?
Doesn’t have the same ring to it. But by his senior year in high school, Cousins had failed to even make an impression on college coaches, while dozens of other recruits had been on the trail since junior high school. For a time, he saw baseball as his future.
The high school scene is unexpectedly brutal. It takes talent, devotion, some connections, and a fair bit of luck to even get noticed. Many professional football players today had scouts’ eyes on them as early as seventh grade. Many had lines of schools offering scholarships. Lines longer than the line for the bathroom at the end of the first half during any given sporting event.
Kirk Cousins had no lines. But he had the same dream. As early as fourth grade, he envisioned himself on the biggest stage in college football. A pawn on the hallowed turf where legends were born. He dreamed that dream during the hours of the day and night. Like so many others, he grew up playing catch in the backyard. One of his favorite Christmas presents was an Iowa Hawkeyes football jersey. He aspired to live in that image.
As is often the case in life, however, dreams endlessly clash with the sobering lull of reality, and by its hand, dreams seem to die. Cousins dreamed of playing college football. But he didn’t expect it. For much of his career, before and during high school, Cousins, realistically thinking, believed that, to have the best shot of playing at any level in college, he would be better off pursuing baseball.
Kirk Cousins. Professional pitcher.
Still doesn’t sound right.
Cousins may have played baseball competitively in high school, but football was always his favorite. It all felt so right to Cousins. The team atmosphere. The winding struggle. A sixty-minute war of attrition. Cousins relished the juxtaposition. The complexity of the process, paired with the sheer simplicity of the result.
Cousins was all-in on football by high school, but football wasn’t all-in on him. While other talented prospects were elevated to varsity level in just their freshman or sophomore year, Cousins would remain on the junior varsity team, sustaining moderate success. His chance would finally come, however, in his junior year. When he was anointed the starting quarterback of Holland Christian’s varsity team.
A Fleeting Window of Opportunity
Kirk Cousins began his first season as a starting quarterback in fall of 2005, and just one quarter later, his season seemed to be over.
It happened on a routine play, as it always does. Cousins dropped back to throw, and when he stepped forward, a defender hit him low, sending him to the ground. On impact, his ankle was twisted, and he limped to his feet.
Cousins didn’t dwell on the injury. He played the rest of the game, leading his team to a win. But the next morning, his ankle had become considerably worse. When the young quarterback went with his parents to have the injury looked at by a specialist, their findings put to life the worst case scenario. Cousins’ ankle had been fractured, and significant ligament damage accompanied that fracture.
The injury sidelined Cousins indefinitely, and at the time, it all but extinguished his hopes of playing college football.
Cousins was discouraged at first, but he was motivated by the possibility of coming back for the final three games, if he worked hard enough to return. With strong roots in his faith, with his father Don Cousins to thank, Cousins persevered through the injury, and after a couple months of hard work, he was able to return before the season’s end.
He did enough in those final three games to gain the attention of low-level scouts, and over the course of his senior year, he reached out to countless camps and schools, using the recruiting process to his advantage as best as he could. He and his father put together a tape of his limited play, distributing it amongst dozens of colleges.
From most, he heard not a word. But in due time, he was able to secure an invite to a camp at Penn State University. There, despite being an unknown, two-star recruit in the presence of high school football titans like current Steelers cornerback Joe Haden, Cousins managed to secure a connection with freelance quarterback coach Bob Johnson, who saw potential in Cousins..
Johnson helped spread Cousins’ name around, and soon, unexpectedly, he received a call from Mark Dantonio, coach of the Michigan State Spartans. Little did either of them know at the time that one call would set off a chain reaction. One that would propel a university to the ranks of the elite, and give Kirk Cousins his chance to shock the world.
Ever the Underdog
Before Cousins signed with Michigan State, the Spartans were committed to another quarterback named Keith Nichol. For a time, it seemed as if Nichol would become the Spartans’ heir apparent at quarterback. But he would later back out of his commitment, leaving the Redskins to settle for the underdog. Kirk Cousins.
Cousins was no stranger to being the underdog at this point, and it was fitting that he came to Michigan State at this time in history. The Spartans were coming off two straight seven-win seasons, with their latest season ending with a bowl game loss at the hands of Matt Ryan’s Boston College Eagles.
The Spartans were better than they used to be. Mark Dantonio had righted the ship in his short time there, but the team was still viewed as an afterthought in the Big Ten, while other teams like Ohio State and Michigan set the standard for what it took to be a true power five team.
Dantonio came into 2008 with his mind on the future. His starting quarterback, Brian Hoyer, would be gone after that year, and he needed a quarterback to carry over and maintain the team’s winning culture, while it still lingered.
Dantonio didn’t believe Cousins to be that quarterback. No one did at first. But when the season ended, and the team needed someone to turn to, Cousins had separated himself as the best option. The team rolled with the underdog for 2009, and their Bowl streak only continued. Cousins threw 19 touchdowns and 9 interceptions in his sophomore season, extending his job security to 2010.
It was in 2010 that Cousins would help lead Michigan State to its winningest season on record. The team, behind Cousins’ leadership and Dantonio’s insight, would share a piece of the Big Ten title. They suffered a lopsided Capital One Bowl defeat at the hands of an Alabama team boasting a roster housing the likes of Eddie Lacy, Trent Richardson, Mark Ingram, and Julio Jones, and that defeat showed them that, while they were nearly free of their ‘underdog’ moniker, they still had more work to do.
Cousins spurned all talks of defeat, setting his sights to his final season. His dream of playing major college football had now come to fruition, but there was another dream that eluded him. The Parade of Roses. The warm Pasadena sun.
The Rose Bowl.
Before the College Football Playoff hijacked a number of high level bowl games, doing away with their conference designations, the Rose Bowl was the promised land for every Big Ten team. The dream that wore the crown as the most fantastical, the most sought after. The National Championship was nice, sure, but for Michigan State, at least, their most realistic, most attainable dream was the Rose Bowl.
That attainability only made Kirk Cousins hungrier.
But Cousins and the Spartans would never make it to the Rose Bowl. They lost the Big Ten Championship game to Russell Wilson and the Wisconsin Badgers, and they instead met Georgia in the Outback Bowl.
Earlier in his career, Cousins would have mourned the lost dream. But he had learned, over years and years of competition, preparation, and hard work, that a lost dream simply led to another one. And so Cousins and the Spartans committed to the Outback Bowl, and after four grueling quarters, with three overtime periods tacked on the end, they came out on top, beating the SEC titan 33-30.
It was a fitting end to Cousins’ storied college career. He’d started as a two-star recruit, and by the inevitable conclusion of his tenure, he had cemented a newfound winning tradition at Michigan State University. But he would not have time to stand on ceremony. Other, greater players were setting ablaze the college stage.
Greater Players
Cousins’ exploits in college were enough to separate him from the fringe players of the draft. But when draft day arrived, Cousins wasn’t on the mind of scouting departments. Other, greater players were.
Cousins gathered with his family at his home on each draft day, and for hours, they watched the names go by. Waiting for theirs to appear on screen.
But Cousins’ name never came. Instead, greater players came before him.
Round 1. Pick 1. Andrew Luck.
Round 1. Pick 2. Robert Griffin III.
Round 1. Pick 8. Ryan Tannehill.
Round 1. Pick 22. Brandon Weeden.
Round 2. Pick 57. Brock Osweiler.
Round 3. Pick 75. Russell Wilson.
Round 3. Pick 88. Nick Foles.
When the festivities of Day Two concluded, the excitement of the build up to the draft was all but gone. Cousins himself had expected to go in Rounds 2 or 3, and his agent, Mike McCartney, was just as confident. He was disappointed when no one called that day, and when the Washington Redskins called the next day, early in the fourth round, his emotions were no different.
Cousins, ever the competitive spirit, planned on having a chance to start immediately out of college. He wasn’t flashy. But he got the job done. But in 2012, that wasn’t enough.
Shanahan felt Cousins was a steal in the fourth round, and so rather than allowing him to be drafted by a team where he would have more immediate opportunities, the Washington Redskins drafted Cousins with the exact intent for which he was eventually used.
To get the job done, if greater players failed to do so.
To be the underdog.
It was a role Cousins knew well.
In his first year with the Washington Redskins, Cousins took on the persona of a good soldier. It was all the quarterback knew how to do. He wasn’t voted as a captain his sophomore year at Michigan State for going home early. Cousins was successful because he worked hard. Harder than the greater players that garnered more recognition than him.
And so, from day one, Cousins worked. And worked. And worked.
As a rookie, Cousins’ work was enough to anoint him the backup quarterback over veteran and mentor Rex Grossman. But as had always been the case, greater players stole the show. Robert Griffin III led the Washington Redskins to the playoffs with a record of 10-6, winning Rookie of the Year in the process. Cousins had played in spot duty at times, but he was still the backup.
In 2013, Cousins would get an extended look at the end of the season. But he was not ready. And in 2014, when Robert Griffin III went down in Week 1, and when Cousins took over the starting job for the foreseeable future, he still wasn’t ready.
But he fought the prestige of the greater players the only way he knew how to. He kept working. He kept striving to be better. Ever the underdog.
And in 2015, the Washington Redskins decided that he was the best.
A Spectacular Transformation
The lake gets colder and colder. But until the temperature strays past a certain numerical point, a certain natural standard defined by atomic laws few may understand, it will not change.
There is a breaking point. A solidus.
More than a month after newly hired head coach Jay Gruden uttered the famous words, “It’s Kirk’s team”, Kirk Cousins was in grave danger of losing his team.
The Washington Redskins, deprived of success came into their Week 7 matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers desperate for a win, middling at 2-4. Too familiar a place for an impatient owner and his impulsive personnel director.
Kirk Cousins had squandered his opportunity up to that point. In six games as the starter, he had thrown six touchdowns to eight interceptions. He’d thrown one touchdown in every game, but in every other game, he had a pair of picks to sullen his name. Cousins was on the hot seat, and with one more lackluster outing, Colt McCoy would unseat him again, as he had done the season before.
The game was prescribed as a code red affair by Gruden himself, and after crushing losses to the Atlanta Falcons and the New York Jets, one more consecutive loss would seal the fate of their season. Like a wave in icy waters. The downward momentum was too much to halt.
It was that downward momentum that rendered the Washington Redskins inert against the Buccaneers in the first half, and by the midway point of the second quarter, they were down 24-0. Dan Snyder could be seen squirming in his luxury booth after a strip sack gave the Buccaneers yet another touchdown. On Alumni Day, where former Redskins’ players flocked to see their team perform, they were being given quite an underwhelming show.
But then… something clicked.
Like the water of Lake Michigan, when it passes the point of highest density at 4 degrees Celsius. And the ice crystals begin to form. The temperature keeps dropping, the pressure rising, the molecules tensing up until it reaches a point of pure stillness. And everything clicks. The waves of doubt frozen in focus. Bustling waters, turned to ice. A spectacular transformation.
Cousins transformed that day. All the hours, the days of hard work, the months of waiting, the years of growing, praying, waiting, and trusting, all leading up to that one game. That one half. That one moment. That spectacular transformation.
Cousins was a different player in the second half. His throws were crisp. His footwork was immaculate. His eyes never blinked. His team mates started to believe, and when the Washington Redskins needed a goal line stop, down 24-27 with less than three minutes to go, the defense made that stop. Because Cousins gave them the chance.
The rest is history. Cousins marched down the field and won the game, and the Washington Redskins would go on to win the embattled NFC East with a record of 9-7. They didn’t see great success that year. But 2015 served a purpose. It gave the team hope, when greater players failed to do so.
From that game on, Cousins would be the best quarterback in the league. In the final ten games of the 2015 season, he threw 23 touchdowns to three interceptions. And from that point to this day, Cousins has been the Washington Redskins starting quarterback, and he hasn’t been half bad. Since the Buccaneers game, he’s thrown for over 10,000 yards, 75 touchdowns, and 28 interceptions.
Kirk Cousins. Professional quarterback.
Sounds better than ‘pitcher’.
The Mentality of Kirk Cousins
More than two years after that transformation, Cousins still has his fair share of doubters to brave. Some attribute his hesitancy to sign a contract with Washington as greed and lust for more. Others believe him to be a pretender. But few are accurate. Few understand. Because few know what must be known.
To understand the Kirk Cousins situation, you must know the mentality of Kirk Cousins.
In Game Changer: Faith, Football, and Finding Your Way, a book by Cousins, he details a past conversation he had with his father, Don Cousins.
“Discipline is a character trait,” the elder Cousins would say to Kirk. “Not something you turn on and off like a light.”
Discipline is a character trait.
Every player that makes it to the NFL must have some degree of discipline. But players who can match Cousins in such a department are few and far between. Like all character traits, discipline is a trait that fluctuates from person to person. Some people are naturally more active, naturally striving to be perfect in all aspects of their being.
Cousins has the character trait of discipline. And not just on the football field. Not just on the practice field. Cousins’ discipline permeates into each and every aspect of his life.
Sports Illustrated’s Greg Bishop detailed the litany of training regimens undergone by Cousins during the offseason, saying that “Cousins is half QB, half biology experiment. He spends tens of thousands of dollars annually on saliva testing and brain training, tissue rejuvenation and blood work and massages. He sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber. He measures his deep sleep and his REM sleep; his hormone, adrenal and testosterone levels; his heart rate and his breathing. Every single decision is aimed at football optimization.”
Cousins has always been the punctual perfectionist. He graduated from Michigan State with flying colors, earning honors as an Academic All-American all four years of his playing career. After his football career is over, he plans on becoming a kinesiologist, if ESPN doesn’t get to him first for a broadcasting role.
There are plenty of other quarterbacks who flaunt their 4.0’s, but discipline of the highest order is interwoven into Cousins’ DNA. Even the puniest proteins exemplify professionalism. Cousins will do everything that it takes to win, and now that he has sustained a high level of personal success over the past three years, he knows that team success, with him as the quarterback, is attainable.
As always, that attainability makes him hungrier. That attainability drives his undying discipline.
Cousins’ tireless work ethic stems past even his sleeping habits. Cousins is aware of his future and what it teases. He knows the value he holds for the Washington Redskins. He knows what value their scheme, their coaches, and their players hold for him. But, in contrast, he’s done his fair share of studying across the league as well.
He knows the names of the offensive coordinators he might just be playing for in 2018. He knows their backgrounds, their tendencies, their affinities, their proclivities. Cousins knows the quarterbacks coaches who will be teaching him, the receivers who will be reeling in his passes, and the running backs who will routinely complete the second half of a precarious backfield exchange.
Cousins knows his options. Because the discipline of the trade demands it. Because his drive for that attainable greatness demands it. Show him a quarterback who won, and he’ll show you a quarterback who had the tools and the smarts to do it. He knows the process it takes to win, because others have done it before, and Cousins is determined to recreate.
Cousins is not guaranteed to succeed, wherever he goes. But his degree of discipline gives him an edge that few quarterbacks have. He will not rule out returning to the Washington Redskins. But he will not extinguish the leverage he’s worked so hard to cultivate, either. Why waste that discipline? Not a second goes to waste for Kirk Cousins. His mentality will not allow it.
The Rise Continues
For or against him, you cannot deny the legacy.
Kirk Cousins has brought life to a franchise without hope. His impossible rise brought the Washington Redskins back to relevance, and yet, they still don’t trust Cousins to lead them higher.
The Washington Redskins had a chance to sign Cousins longterm in 2015. No such deal materialized. They failed again in 2016, after Cousins threw for almost 5,000 yards. And now, over 13,000 yards and 100 total touchdowns later, the odds are mounting for another round of befuddled negotiations. Three in a row.
Strikeout.
Perhaps Cousins could have made it as a pitcher after all.
By now, talks have migrated far past mere matters of ability. The money speaks louder than anything else, and ousting Cousins in favor of more financial flexibility is a perfectly rational thought.
But by losing Cousins, the Washington Redskins lose a player whose value could only continue to rise. He’s in his prime, and in many circles, he is a top ten quarterback in the NFL. Performance wise, you lose a proven player in the NFL. A valuable commodity in its own right.
But what else do you lose? A person of the utmost discipline? A voyager on a one-way quest for greatness? A zealous follower of all the winning customs, and only the winning customs. Determined to win, and destined to win?
Or a fraud?
When they said he couldn’t do it, he did it anyway. Time and time again. Ever the underdog. And when the opportunity arises to follow his discipline further, and step closer to the ultimate goal of forever glory, Cousins will take that opportunity. Here, or somewhere else.
As for the ultimate question, whether Cousins is good enough to win and ascend atop the pantheon of league quarterbacks, only time will weather the rocks on Lake Michigan’s shores. Time, the ruthless agent of change, unrelenting in its pursuit of truth, will expose Cousins, and whatever he dares to become.
Time has done the same for those who came before him. And now, in 2018, many appear to be on their way out the door. Carson Palmer has retired. Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers are drifting closer to the twilight of their careers. Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, and Eli Manning will all soon be lost to age. And even Tom Brady, the subject of a constant debate defining immortality, will submit to time. Soon, Cousins will be where they stood. In the front of the pack.
But speculation on Cousins’ future is for another time. Another place. For now, know his story. Know his mentality. And know that Kirk Cousins braved the impossible rise.
Next: The confounding tenure of Redskins president Bruce Allen
An impossible rise that isn’t over yet.