Kirk Cousins Has Been Hilariously Bad On Monday Night Football In His Career

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Full disclosure: I am a fan of Kirk Cousins.

Every day at OutKick, we have these Zoom calls where we kick around story ideas, talk through some the day's news, share with each other what we're working on ... and usually find a way to work in our opinions on sports.

I don't know how to explain it, but somehow 25% of these calls go off-the-rails because of Kirk Cousins. Someone brings him up; I defend him as being a Top 15 NFL quarterback; everyone attacks me. Rinse and repeat. This happens at least twice a week.

We also have a massive work text-chain where we can communicate broadly about anything that might pop up. And Monday night's chain was pretty much everyone texting me about how awful Kirk Cousins is. There's not much I can say. He was bad. The Vikings were bad.

I would argue that the score was not his fault and there are a few reasons for that -- the brutal Irv Smith drop, Justin Jefferson completely giving up on a route, Kevin O'Connell dialing up an empty set when his offensive line couldn't block a middle school D-line -- but I won't get into those. Well, I guess I just did. Sue me.

The Truth is Kirk Cousins is Terrible on Monday Night

Again, while I don't place all the blame on Cousins for Monday's performance, it's notable just how bad he is on Monday Night Football. The Week 2 loss to the Eagles was Cousins' 12th career start on a Monday. He's now 2-10 in those games. The only two wins he's ever had have both come against the Chicago Bears (one in 2020, one in 2021), and both of them at Soldier Field.

He has thrown at least one interception in five straight Monday Night Football games, dating back to 2019. He owns a career 17-11 TD-INT ratio. His completion percentage in Monday games (63.2%) is more than four points lower than his completion percentage on Sundays (67.3%). His QB rating is nearly 15 points lower on Monday (85.2) than on Sunday (100.0).

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He averages nearly 20 yards less passing on Monday (239.6) than on Sunday (258.2). And if you add his two lost fumbles in Monday games, we're up to 13 turnovers in 12 games.

Luckily for Kirk and the Minnesota Vikings, they won't play another Monday Night Football game this season. Although, they do play the Patriots on a Thursday night later in the season, and Cousins is actually bad on Thursdays too. But that's a story for another day.

For now, I can take solace in the fact that Kirk Cousins will be back where he thrives for the foreseeable future: playing on Sunday afternoon.