If they’re not the two best quarterbacks to emerge from the 2012 draft class, surely they’re the top two who weren’t drafted in the first round.
Seattle’s Russell Wilson and Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins square off again, as far and away the NFC’s top two wild-card candidates — the 9-2 Seahawks and 8-3 Vikings — meet Monday night in Seattle (8:15 p.m. EST, TSN via ESPN).
The next closest teams to Seattle and Minnesota in the wild-card race entering Sunday were the 6-5 Los Angeles Rams, 6-6 Chicago Bears, 5-6 Philadelphia Eagles and 5-6 Carolina Panthers.
But because both the Seahawks and Vikings are in the thick of their division races — Seattle with San Francisco in the West, Minnesota with Green Bay in the North — expect both to bring their A games.
If it seems the Seahawks and Vikings play every year, well, this is their sixth meeting in the past eight years. So almost.
“I think that the highlight probably is that Kirk Cousins is playing the best he’s ever played. His numbers are great,” Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll said. “Seventy per cent completions. Really great (passer) rating, up at almost 115, all that kind of stuff. Mix in with their running game and the defence that they play and the quarterback play, they’re as hard as you can get to play against.
“It’s a good challenge for us. We need it. This will be a great one if we can get through it. Here we go again.”
The Seahawks have been masters at winning tight games this season. They could easily have more losses than wins, but have pulled out two games in overtime plus a number of one-score games.
Carroll said even though Minnesota installed a new offence this year for Cousins, you wouldn’t know it now.
“They look clearly committed to what they’re doing, all the way through,” Carroll said. “Even in preseason, their style — of running the football and ball control and then trying to attack you downfield when they get their shots — has really been evident throughout. They’re really good because they’re able to do all of those things.”
Cousins makes it all work for the Vikings attack, Carroll said. He and his Seattle counterpart, Wilson, face off again in another big prime-time game. The first time was in college, when Cousins’ Michigan State Spartans squared off against Wilson’s victorious Wisconsin Badgers in the 2011 Big Ten championship game.
Cousins has been the ideal complement to the Vikings’ powerful rushing attack, led by the NFL’s third-leading rusher, Dalvin Cook (1,017 yards).
“He’s like the point guard, he’s doing a great job,” Carroll said of Cousins. “I was going to say to you guys, it was interesting back at the combine when Russ and Kirk were coming out. I recall it as we went back-to-back with those guys in our meetings up in the hotel. You couldn’t expect to be more impressed by two back-to-back guys coming out and talking about the game, their future, their awareness, their resolve, their commitment and competitiveness. All that came through. It was memorable.”
“Those were the two guys that were really the most impressive in that group that we brought through that year … It was kind of cool.”
The Seahawks drafted Wilson in the third round in 2012, 75 th overall. The Washington Redskins drafted Cousins in the fourth round, 102 nd overall. Cousins signed with the Vikings last year.
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