Keenum, Cousins set for Redskins-Vikings QB reunion
Case Keenum was in no mood to reminisce Tuesday as he stood in front of a gaggle of reporters who primarily wanted him to talk about the past. The Washington Redskins quarterback clearly would rather have been elsewhere, talking about anything else, and quickly exited the dais at the first pause in questioning.
Players may not like it, but this shortened week has been just as much about the past as it is about the present. Thursday night’s matchup in Minnesota between the Redskins and the Vikings features several high-profile reunions, including Keenum playing against his former team.
“There’s really no need to get more amped for any game in this league, especially when you’re playing a team like this with a great defense,” Keenum said. “The fact this is my old team — I’ve played long enough to where I feel like if I keep going like I’m going, I might play against my old team every week. It’s adding up now, so it’s just a normal game for me.”
Keenum is returning to Minnesota’s U.S. Bank Stadium for the first time since he led the Vikings to the NFC championship game during the 2017 season. It is the site of his crowning professional achievement — a 61-yard touchdown pass to Stefon Diggs with no time remaining against the New Orleans Saints in the divisional round game.
“There’s not enough time to reminisce,” Keenum said. “It’s a special time, it’s a special play, special group of guys, something I’ll remember forever, but not necessarily this week.”
Keenum helped lead that team to a 13-3 record, but the Vikings decided to let him walk in free agency after the season — which ended with a blowout loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the conference title game — and invested a fully guaranteed $84 million in Kirk Cousins.
That leads us to the second reunion of the week, as Cousins will be facing his former team for the first time. The Redskins drafted Cousins in 2012, but despite his leading the team to one playoff appearance among three consecutive 4,000-yard seasons, Washington declined to commit to him long term. Instead, the organization used the franchise tag on him in back-toback years, leading to a contract stalemate that eventually resulted in his departure.
“It’s a funny situation, I guess,” running back Chris Thompson said. “There was a lot of stuff going on when he was here being franchise-tagged twice when we all know he wanted to get a longterm deal done, but we weren’t able to. Since then, how many quarterbacks has it been? With injuries, it’s been a whole lot since then, but that’s part of the business. Things happen, obviously. I made it known back then when Kirk was here, we both talked about playing together for years. But things happen.”
The quarterback reunions, along with the return of Adrian Peterson to Minnesota, the team for which he starred much of his career, adds a layer of intrigue to the matchup. Redskins interim coach Bill Callahan downplayed the role that any familiarity with Cousins, who has thrown for 10 touchdowns and just one interception during Minnesota’s three-game winning streak following a slow start to his Vikings tenure, might have on the game. But there’s no question that several Washington defenders are used to what Cousins does and doesn’t like to do.
“We would say at the Giants, ‘You don’t know what kind of Kirk Cousins you’re going to get,’ ” said safety Landon Collins, who played against Cousins as a member of New York’s defense. “Right now, they’re getting Pro Bowl Kirk Cousins, and he’s playing at a high level right now. … I know we put a lot of pressure on him, put a lot of guys in his face, a lot of blitzes, lot of different systematic fronts and stuff like that, disguises.”
Whereas 49ers Coach Kyle Shanahan, a former Redskins offensive coordinator, took a few veiled shots at the organization ahead of last week’s game, Cousins was nothing but complementary when asked about his time in Washington.