Was It Classless For Kirk Cousins To Use The Jets As Leverage In His Deal With The Vikings?
Oh boy. You can have sweet, you can have sour, but Mark Cannizzaro chooses to be salty. Why so salty though? Let’s read on:
NY Post - Is there a Jets fan alive who doesn’t crave seeing the Jets defense dismantle Kirk Cousins and the Vikings on Sunday at MetLife Stadium and then ask the Minnesota quarterback this:
“You like that?!?’’
The delicious byproduct would be sticking it to Cousins, who not only spurned an outlandish free-agent contract offer of $90 million guaranteed over three years from the Jets in March, but then bragged about using them as leverage to up the Minnesota offer on a video that was posted for public consumption and — as it turned out — Jets embarrassment.
In the video, Cousins tells his wife, Julie, that “the Jets came up to 30 [million], fully guaranteed, three-year deal.”
Her response: “Whoa.”
Cousins then said, “So now we have what we wanted. [His agent, Mike McCartney] has to do the same thing with the Vikings. He’s got to get them from 25 to a number that is competitive with the Jets’ offer. But the fact that we have the Jets offer is huge. Now it gives the other teams a reason to come up.”
The end game was the Vikings upping their offer from $25 million to $28 million per year guaranteed, which Cousins agreed to.
That the video, which contained information from confidential conversations that would be embarrassing to the Jets, was signed off on to be posted to the public is — if we’re cutting the Vikings a break for being absent-minded — a clueless oversight.
But if we’re being more realistic, it was classless.
Oh man. Mark Cannizzaro is salty because…well because Kirk used the Jets to get more money from Minnesota. His agent got 30 million a year guaranteed from the Jets and turned that into 28 million a year guaranteed from the Vikings. And then since he was filming a documentary about the whole offseason free agent process, he posted the video on the internet, which Cannizzaro is calling “classless”. I’m trying to figure out what I’m missing here. Who in their right mind wouldn’t leverage in free agency? Who in their right mind wouldn’t choose the Vikings who are set up to win now, over the Jets, who have had 1 winning season in their last 7, and back to back 5 win seasons? Kirk went on to say
Then this from Cousins in an interview about why he chose to sign with the Vikings: “Ultimately, the leadership of the organization is what set it apart.”
How exactly he would have any clue about the leadership in the Jets’ organization is curious because Cousins opted not to take a half-day out of his self-important schedule to meet Jets owner Christopher Johnson, general manager Mike Maccagnan and/or coach Todd Bowles.
I mean, you got used and now you’re upset. It’s like the quarterback dating the science girl to make the head cheerleader jealous so he can end up going to prom with her instead. I mean yeah Kimmie is nice and all and she comes from a rich family, but she still has her braces on and she shares a bedroom with her sister who makes it sort of awkward for everyone. So he used her to get Jessica’s attention, and it worked. It worked fantastically.
But here’s the thing, it worked great for the Jets I mean Kimmie too. Because she found a nice freshman with a big head but a ton of potential and didn’t have to pay him 30 million dollars a year. So there’s literally nothing for her to be upset about. She got Sam Darnold and now can afford to surround him with other young talent. Being upset you lost out on Kirk should have ended a long time ago.
The article ends:
When Cousins was about to sign with the Vikings, McCartney waxed on about how he was going to a place where people are “Minnesota Nice.”
Jets fans, if you have one task on Sunday, it is this: Show Cousins what “Meadowlands Nice’’ is.
OH BOY!
It’s so weird for this columnist to care so much when the Jets look like they got a stud QB for the next decade. And if he cares about the Jets being embarrassed, uhhhh, well, then the Jets should work on not being so embarrassing. You don’t have to defend your embarrassing franchise when it does embarrassing things, I know that all too well.
So was it classless for Kirk to negotiate a better deal with the Vikings using the Jets as leverage and document the whole thing? That just sounds like the cost of doing business. It was cool to see the video and to see the honesty out of Kirk. And who knows, if the Vikes don’t up their deal, he could be a New York Jet today. But it worked so he’s not.