Being selected third overall in the NFL Draft comes with instant expectations of stardom. For Sam Darnold, those expectations followed him from New York to Carolina and even briefly to San Francisco. And for years, they were met with disappointment. Labeled a bust before he ever found stability, Darnold became a cautionary tale of how quickly promise can fade in the NFL.
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Then, in his seventh season, everything changed.
Reinvented in Minnesota, Darnold shed his past and emerged as the leader of a resurgent Vikings team. Once written off as a failed prospect, he is now the engine behind a Super Bowl run and the odds-on favorite for MVP on the sport’s biggest stage. And according to Kirk Cousins, that transformation was no accident.
“He did a great job of keeping his nose to the grindstone, staying the course, and playing through it all,” Cousins noted in a recent interview. “He’s always been a talented player; you saw what he could do.”
The only issue is that, for as flawed as Darnold may have been throughout his early days, neither the Panthers nor the Jets has ever been able to give their signal callers a fair shot at winning football games.
According to Cousins, that’s worth considering when evaluating Darnold’s career, but now that he’s been with two competent franchises, it’s clear that the USC product was never the issue.
“To win you really need everything around you too, and I think he has that in Seattle. I think he had a lot of it last year in Minnesota, and even in San Fran, when he was backing up, you saw what it should or could look like. I’m happy for him and the resiliency that he’s shown, and it’s paid off.”
With nearly 15 years of NFL experience, it’s safe to say that Cousins knows what it takes to deliver a winning product, even if he’s seldom been a part of one. If anything, he believes that Darnold’s career should serve as a reminder to everyone, fans included, that “you never know what next year can bring” and that sometimes it’s best to simply “stay the course and keep going.”
Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins is expected to be released before the start of the new league year in March, allowing him to choose where or if he wants to play in 2026, per league sources.https://t.co/4sFE7eCgEo
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 7, 2026
As far as Cousins himself is concerned, well, it seems as if he’s now the one who needs to be trusting the process. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the Atlanta Falcons are expected to release the 37-year-old quarterback later on in March of this year.
While that would allow Cousins the autonomy to choose where he finishes his career, it also means that he’ll have to find someone who is willing to offer him a starting job, which may not be readily available to him outside of a select few franchises.
Nevertheless, he seems to fancy his odds on the open market, and given his aforementioned experience, it seems safe to say that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, we may just get one last matchup between Darnold and Cousins after all.
