Mike Shanahan: Kirk Cousins will be a top-10 NFL QB

By Steve DelVecchio

Mike Shanahan was the coach of the Washington Redskins when the team drafted Kirk Cousins in the fourth round of the 2012 NFL Draft. From the sound of it, Shanahan believes the pick was a steal for his former team.

After Cousins was named Washington’s starting quarterback on Monday, Shanahan has some extremely high praise for the former Michigan State star.

“Kirk Cousins is a franchise quarterback,” Shanahan told Dan Hellie of NFL Network. “He will be a top-10 quarterback in this league, no doubt about it.”

Shanahan is more than a little biased. Though Robert Griffin III found success under Shanahan and Shanahan’s son, former Redskins offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan, in his rookie season, we have every reason to believe RG3 was ownership’s pick. Teams who draft a “franchise” quarterback in the first round rarely draft another signal-caller three rounds later.

After Griffin’s productive rookie season in 2012, he suffered a torn ACL in a playoff loss and constantly disagreed with Shanahan over his rehab and recovery. There were reports that RG3 bragged during his second season about his influence over Redskins owner Dan Snyder, and Shanahan indicated that those reports were true in this very telling interview earlier this year.

Will Cousins be a top-10 quarterback this year? We highly doubt it. He completed 61 percent of his passes last season and threw 10 touchdowns and nine interceptions. The Redskins weren’t suddenly good when he played, though he seemed to be an improvement over RG3 in Gruden’s system. Calling him a “franchise quarterback” just seems premature.

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