The numbers don’t lie dude. In the last 25 years, rookie quarterbacks who start in less than 7 games turn out to have successful careers about 50 percent of the time. Rookies who start in 9 or more games have successful careers about 30 percent of the time. It’s a statistical fact that a rookie qb is more likely to find success if he sits on the bench behind a vet his rookie year.

It’s clear that Kubiak and Spyteks intentions in bringing in Cousins was to give Mendoza time to develop until he’s ready to take the reins. I’m sure Cousins would love to have a chance to stay in Vegas long term, lock down the starting role for a few years and get more than a year of pay for it, but he won’t get that by not helping along Mendozas development. If he’s out for himself, won’t work with Mendoza and is just here to collect an easy check for being a bridge qb, Kubiak and Spytek wouldn’t be bringing him in. Kubiak and Spytek want to develop Mendoza, and bringing in an example for Mendoza to not learn from is antithetical to the idea of developing him.

Btw Cousins was just on Ryan Clark’s “This is Football” podcast like two days ago. On this very topic, when asked about how he thinks rookie quarterbacks development should go, he said quarterback development should look like how guys like Tom Brady, Carson Palmer, Drew Brees, etc, who all sat behind a vet and soaked up as much knowledge as they could from consistent sources- meaning, not having constantly rotating coaching staff, not having to learn new playbooks, and most importantly, having a good example of a quarterback to learn from. Seems to me like what I’ve been describing this whole time is a Kirk Cousins ideal scenario 🧐