Why I'm Not Gonna Panic About Our QB

And you can judge this by 4 starts? He's hit his ceiling already?? Ok.

I know. Hilarious. Cousins will NEVER get any better, because he played poorly in 3 meaningless games at the end of a 3-13 season. Oh, and he's in his 3rd year and everyone knows NFL QBs peak in year 2.

Everyone had checked out for those last 3 games and who were his weapons besides Pierre Garcon? To think he can't be any better with another off-season under his belt and a full compliment of weapons is insane.

Not saying he's Joe Montana incarnate, but I definitely think he's capable of moving the ball against first team Defenses. Maybe he'll still be turnover prone, but who knows. He's hardly the first young QB to struggle with turnovers early in his career. Fix the turnovers, and Cousins looks like he could be a pretty good QB.

RG3 no longer looks like he'll be "elite" one day. He looks like a guy struggling with the basics.

Not saying he's Joe Montana incarnate, but I definitely think he's capable of moving the ball against first team Defenses. Maybe he'll still be turnover prone, but who knows. He's hardly the first young QB to struggle with turnovers early in his career. Fix the turnovers, and Cousins looks like he could be a pretty good QB.

RG3 no longer looks like he'll be "elite" one day. He looks like a guy struggling with the basics.

So we can judge Griffin beyond a shadow of a doubt by the 20 attempts he's had in PREseason, but Cousins can't be judged by the four regular season games he played? And we also have to ignore all of Griffin’s previous accomplishments? Seems fair.

Regardless of what the games meant at the time, the one glaring fact about Cousins game that has been true throughout his college and professional career is that he turns the ball over far too much. His interception rate was 2.65% for his college career and has swelled to almost 5% in his NFL career. It's pretty rare for a quarterback that has a history of turnovers to suddenly 'fix' the problem.

Here's a few more statistics from Cousins' 2013 season. I know some people don't acknowledge certain statistics, so take your pick.

Standard QB rating of 58.4 - 69th in the league.
Total QBR of 26.5 - 35th in the league.
DVOA of -42.6 - 45th out of the top 45 quarterbacks.
Completion % of 52.9 - 45th out of the top 45 quarterbacks.

I suppose none of these stats can stand up to the eyeball test, but what about any of this screams "effective NFL quarterback"?

St. Louis does not want Kirk, they want Sanchez.

The feeling is not mutual

I don't understand why there's such a strong need to say QB A is awesome, so QB B must suck. No, no, no. We have two good young QBs, yet for some dumb reason we as fans refuse to accept that.

Im 100% behind RG3, but my thread wasnt to bash Cousins. I still view him as a top 5 backup in the league. Thats very valuable in today's NFL and thats why Im serious if the Rams would make an offer I would hold firm at a multiple pick deal which included at least a 2nd round pick next year and another 3rd or 2nd the following year. I dont think thats unreasonable.

So we can judge Griffin beyond a shadow of a doubt by the 20 attempts he's had in PREseason,

Considering RGIII wasn't running the read option a lot last year, you can judge him all of last year on his pocket presence and reading defenses. Not sure why you guys keep saying 20 snaps in pre-season.

I don't understand why there's such a strong need to say QB A is awesome, so QB B must suck. No, no, no. We have two good young QBs, yet for some dumb reason we as fans refuse to accept that.


I'm willing to admit Cousins does some things well, like getting the ball out quickly. However, I think labeling his as 'good' is a bit of a stretch. He's had two above average statistical games and two terrible games. And even his above average games had multiple interceptions.

If his current level of play can be considered good, then we'd have to classify Geno Smith, Brian Hoyer, and Terrelle Pryor as good, too.

Edit: Also, I'm certainly not claiming that Griffin is playing at an awesome level at this point, but I'm willing to let him go through some growing pains while he learns a new offense.

Considering RGIII wasn't running the read option a lot last year, you can judge him all of last year on his pocket presence and reading defenses. Not sure why you guys keep saying 20 snaps in pre-season.

I give RG3 a pass on last year. But not this year. He's had a full off season now to work things out. Time to perform Sept 7th.

So we can judge Griffin beyond a shadow of a doubt by the 20 attempts he's had in PREseason, but Cousins can't be judged by the four regular season games he played? And we also have to ignore all of Griffin’s previous accomplishments? Seems fair.

Regardless of what the games meant at the time, the one glaring fact about Cousins game that has been true throughout his college and professional career is that he turns the ball over far too much. His interception rate was 2.65% for his college career and has swelled to almost 5% in his NFL career. It's pretty rare for a quarterback that has a history of turnovers to suddenly 'fix' the problem.

Here's a few more statistics from Cousins' 2013 season. I know some people don't acknowledge certain statistics, so take your pick.

Standard QB rating of 58.4 - 69th in the league.
Total QBR of 26.5 - 35th in the league.
DVOA of -42.6 - 45th out of the top 45 quarterbacks.
Completion % of 52.9 - 45th out of the top 45 quarterbacks.

I suppose none of these stats can stand up to the eyeball test, but what about any of this screams "effective NFL quarterback"?

Both QB's were up and down last year. Time to move on. It's 2014.

I'm not in panic mode, but I am concerned with what I'm seeing. I understand the rust, and a new system. However, rust shouldn't cause a pro QB to miss wide open receivers when he isn't under distress. A new system also shouldn't cause him to run OB behind the line, takes hits that could be avoided, and a few other things. I'm an RGIII guy, but he either needs to smarten up, or sharpen up. Kirk is waiting....