Vikings: Should Kirk Cousins feel slighted by Justin Jefferson?

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson has his list of top five NFL quarterbacks, but Kirk Cousins isn’t among them.

Justin Jefferson may be a top-five wide receiver in the NFL for the Minnesota Vikings, but apparently, he doesn’t feel the same way about his teammate, Kirk Cousins.

Jefferson was recently asked by Danilo Lacalle of RedeTV! who his top five quarterbacks in the league were. He answered in order as follows.

1. Patrick Mahomes
2. Joe Burrow
3. Aaron Rodgers
4. Jalen Hurts
5. Josh Allen

As you can see, Cousins’ name was nowhere to be found. Is this a problem or not even one bit?

While appearing on KFAN, Cousins was asked about Jefferson’s rankings and responded as such.

"“I didn’t even see it. This is the first time hearing about it. As a competitor, yeah, you always want that. People have to be honest and share what they think and I’m not going to tell somebody what they need to think and hopefully in 2024, I’ll be on his list. We’ll see what we can do this year.”"

Though Cousins will use this as fuel, should he feel slighted by Jefferson’s quarterback rankings?

Minnesota Vikings: Justin Jefferson doesn’t think Kirk Cousins is a top-five QB

No, not at all. Cousins is operating with a pretty high level of self-awareness here. He has never been a top-five quarterback in football, but he is also not as athletically gifted as many of the names listed ahead of him by Jefferson. Keep in mind that Cousins was underrecruited coming out of high school and was only a fourth-round pick by Washington after his career at Michigan State.

For Cousins to even have had this career professionally is nothing short of remarkable. He has put in the work and has been a top-eight-to-12 passer for the better part of a decade now. Cousins has brought stability to a position in historically dire need of it in Minnesota. While he has struggled in primetime and in other big spots, the Vikings are better by having signed Cousins many years ago.

Ultimately, you can’t really blame Jefferson for being totally authentic about his top five. Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Aaron Rodgers and Josh Allen are absolutely in my top four. He did play with Burrow at LSU. As far as Jalen Hurts is concerned, he just keeps getting better. If I had to sit down and really think about it, Cousins would make my top 10, probably come in at around eight.

His combination of accuracy, precision and ability to run a high-end offense have served Cousins.