Well, I guess I’m an asshole.

Today, my favorite football team has signed the biggest free agent quarterback to hit the open market since Peyton Manning.  Within the next few days the former Washington quarterback, and worlds biggest Creed fan, Kirk Cousins should officially be a member of the Minnesota Vikings and all for the low low price of about $28 million a year over the next three seasons.  All guaranteed.

I know I should be excited and I suppose part of me is.  Having the knowledge that the Vikings now have a durable, above average, semi long term solution at the most important position in sports, something I have not been able to say in maybe a decade, should be cause for massive celebration.  Cousins has been incredibly consistent over the past three years. He has amassed season totals of over 4000+ yards passing and 20+ TDs all while staying healthy which, from a Vikings fan’s perspective, is possibly the most important accomplishment of all.  He gives an already good team an upgrade at the most important position in sports. I should be thrilled. I should be ecstatic. I should be throwing a party that would make the Love Boat look like a whale watching day trip with your grandparents.

So why no excitement?  I think there are a couple of reasons.  First, while it wasn’t the 30+ million a year I had originally feared, it is still a massive amount of money to devote to one guy, even if that was their greatest weakness and what you have to do in order to get sustainable competence from that position.  I’m not worried about Zygi opening up his presumably preposterously large wallet and shelling out the funds. I’m sure he’s a lovely billionaire, as most are, but I could give a fuck if he has to put his next private jet on layaway because of this new investment.  The money concerns I have come in the form of the salary cap. It doesn’t matter how much that goofy looking money machine is willing to part with, there is a built in ceiling for what can be spent. The reason I have reservations (not a joke about his former team I wouldn’t do that) is because of the laundry list of talented young players that will soon be off their indenturedservant rookie deals and ready to be paid like the stars they are.  Barr, Kendricks, Diggs and Hunter will all be looking to cash in after next year.  I’m no capologist (fuck everyone for that being a word that I know) so there may be a way to figure that out.  The Vikings have recently been very good at navigating this league imposed spending restriction so if anyone can figure out a way to do it, it’s them.  My concern is that Cousins only makes sense because adding him to a stacked team could put them over the top but if his addition to said stacked team causes them to no longer be that aforementioned stacked team then you just have a slightly above average quarterback on a roster with too many holes for a mediocre signal caller to overcome.

My second reason for not going all 18 year old pledging a sorority and dancing like no one is looking, is that this addition of Cousins means that I finally have to give up on my dream of watching the love of my quarterback life leading this team to their first Super Bowl championship in franchise history.  The fact that I have to say goodbye to Teddy Bridgewater is up there with Blair Walsh missing that kick, or Gary Anderson missing that kick or why the fuck can we not get a kicker, Christ. Now I will be forced to watch Jets games and watch Teddy be the guy I have believed he could be for another franchise. The thought of that is like imagining the love of your life leaving you only to shack up with some loser and then be forced to watch them be happy and inexplicably find love and success every single Sunday for the next decade.  I do hope he has success and I guess I can take solace in the fact that he didn’t go to the Seahawks, so I suppose it could be worse.

There are positives that I do not want to gloss over here.  The obvious I have touched on. The Minnesota Vikings finally do not have to worry about the quarterback position on a year to year basis hoping that some reach of a draft pick or some over the hill veteran can somehow get their shit together long enough to get them where we’ve been waiting to see them go for the entirety of our lives.  The most important thing that this signing means, and I cannot stress this enough, is that I never have to watch that bum Case Keenum play another meaningful snap of football. He seems like a lovely guy but fuck Case Keenum. I am so sick of reading and listening to so called NFL experts attempting to explain to me and anyone else with functioning eyes that Case Keenum is a franchise quarterback or that Case Keenum is basically Kirk Cousins or that you can win a Super Bowl with Case Keenum as your starting quarterback.  Fuck all the way off. If you are paid to speak or write intelligently about this sport and you have ever put any of those thoughts out into the either for public consumption you should know that you are bad at your job and your brain is bullshit.

That last paragraph actually made me feel better.  I think I’m starting to get excited. Which can only mean one thing, that contract that hasn’t been signed yet will somehow fall apart and we end up with AJ McCarron while I watch Teddy take the Jets on an inexplicable Super Bowl run.  God damnit, now I’m back to baseline Vikings fan. Oh well, I’ve always been more comfortable swimming in these waters anyways.

Obligatory you like that gif:

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