Former Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann is a huge fan of current Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins, who has been on fire of late.
“I think he’s been playing fantastic football,” Theismann said, via TMZ Sports. “The thing about Kirk, and about the position, really, is how consistent can you be, as things develop around you? And I think in Kirk’s case, we’ve seen him get better and better and better.”
Theismann points to Cousins’ outstanding completion rate as an illustration of this. Last year he finished the season leading the league after completing 69.8 percent. This year he’s at 67.2 percent. Cousins has also consistently gotten the ball into the end zone the past year and a half, throwing 46 touchdowns in his last 26 games.
With that in mind, Theismann believes Cousins is emerging as a top quarterback in the NFL.
“I think he’s better than a Matthew Stafford, I think he’s better than Joe Flacco, I think he’s better than Jay Cutler.”
Given the dearth of talent at the quarterback position around the league, it’s not hard to agree with Theismann on this.
It’s also not crazy to agree with him that Cousins deserves the kind of contract doled out to top quarterbacks.
He also believes Cousins has made the most out of his decision to bet on himself by signing the franchise tag this past spring and is in line to earn a contract in the $100 million range.
Stafford, Flacco and Cutler all earned big-money deals recently. Cutler is on his way out of Chicago (and might miss the rest of the year with a shoulder injury) and Flacco has been struggling like crazy since the beginning of the season.
The only quarterback of these three that has played well this year is Stafford, whose stats are comparable to those of Cousins.
The Redskins have a huge decision to make about how much to pay Cousins. But pay him they must. Otherwise, another team will be happy to make him a $100 million man.