OPINION:
BALTIMORE — For one possible glimpse of the future of Kirk Cousins, we take you to Baltimore: the land of the high-priced hated starting quarterback.
On a thread on the Baltimore fan web site “Russell Street Report,” Ravens fans bemoaned the fact that Joe Flacco is their quarterback for the foreseeable future.
“We are stuck,” one fan wrote.
“Yeah, we’re pretty much (blanked) with Flacco unless we purge everyone,” another fan wrote. “Maybe you trade him to a team that isn’t smart like Cleveland.”
“Let’s do it then,” another fan responded. “The sooner the better. And take the cap hit.”
To which one more fan responded, “Our next quarterback is a high school senior this year.”
Joe Flacco led the Baltimore Ravens to the 2012 Super Bowl championship in a postseason run that year that tied Hall of Famer Joe Montana — 11 touchdowns without an interception. Then he signed a record six-year, $120.6 million contract.
And Ravens fans hate him for it.
He deflected some of that hate Sunday with a 21-14 Ravens win over the Pittsburgh Steelers at M&T Bank Stadium, halting a four-game losing streak to even Baltimore’s record at 4-4. But Flacco — 18 of 30 for 241 yards, one touchdown and one interception for a quarterback rating of 82.8 — has become the symbol of the struggles of the perennial winning franchise.
“There’s not disappointment right now,” Flacco said after the game. “They are tough football games to win. But yeah, there is a little frustration in the fact that we’re not playing as well as we want to.”
For fans, the quarterback and his $120.6 million contract are seen as the biggest reason for frustration. Flacco’s big number ties up cap money that could be used elsewhere to rebuild the team.
If we are to believe Redskins general manager Scot McCloughan, he understands the frustration of Ravens fans and sympathizes with them.
“The quarterback position’s very, very important, but you know what, so is every other position,” McCloughan told Sirius XM Bleacher Report radio in July. “We need football players. We need multiple football players, not one.”
Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome decided, though, they had to pay one man — Flacco — following his Super Bowl season. You didn’t find many Baltimore fans who protested that decision. But in the three years since, they’ve had just one winning season and playoff appearance.
Stan Charles, writer and publisher for PressBox magazine and website in Baltimore, doesn’t believe the Ravens organization has “buyer’s remorse” over the Flacco contract. “That said, it was incumbent upon Ozzie Newsome on the personnel side to be near flawless, like he was in his first decade-and-a-half as Ravens GM,” Charles said. “In that regard, Newsome has not held up his end of the bargain one makes when a QB begins to make a disproportionate amount of your cap.”
As a result, Joe Flacco is now seen as the albatross the organization has around its neck.
It’s a heavy load — one that Kirk Cousins can expect to carry.
Flacco won a Super Bowl, and they want to run him out of town. Cousins has one winning season, an NFC East title and who know what ahead of him this year. He is standing at the same pay window, though, as Flacco was in 2012 — a long-term lucrative contract.
Cousins is also at risk, if the Redskins should opt to pay him the money that a quarterback with his production would get on the free agent market — something they did not do this off season, franchising him for $20 million this year instead — of becoming the most hated man in Washington if he gets a big contract but the team fails to produce.
Last month, a Fox TV report during the Eagles game suggested media and fan criticism has affected Cousins — that he doesn’t respond well to it and that his coach, Jay Gruden, considered it a problem.
Cousins dismissed the notion, but Gruden didn’t quite do so when he spoke to reporters. “I think maybe it was more ’could be getting to him, possibly’ because there’s a lot of it,” he said. “But I don’t think it has. I think he’s proven that it hasn’t. I think a normal human being when you read all those criticisms over and over, it could get to you.
“But I think talking to Kirk, he doesn’t read it at all, so it doesn’t really get to him,” Gruden said. “I don’t think there’s really a lot to that either.”
Then again, while Kirk Cousins has his critics, he hasn’t been elevated yet to Public Enemy No. 1. If and when he gets Joe Flacco money — and doesn’t have championship success to show for it — he will find out what real criticism is.
• Thom Loverro hosts his weekly podcast “Cigars & Curveballs” Wednesdays available on iTunes and Google Play.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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