Former Michigan State football star Kirk Cousins, as is the rest of the NFL, is preparing for a season unlike any other.
And when it comes to the threat of COVID-19, the quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings does not sound all that concerned.
“If I die, I die,” Cousins said during the “10 Questions with Kyle Brandt” podcast published Wednesday in an interview with the NFL Network personality. “I kind of have peace about that.”
Asked to rate his level of concern over getting the virus on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “the person who says, ‘Masks are stupid, you’re all a bunch of lemmings,’ and 10 is, ‘I’m not leaving my master bathroom for the next 10 years.'”
“I’m not gonna call anybody stupid, for the trouble it would get me in. But I’m about a .000001.” Cousins said.
“I want to respect what other people’s concerns are. For me personally, just talking no one else can get the virus, what is your concern if you could get it, I would say I’m gonna go about my daily life. If I get it, I’m gonna ride it out. I’m gonna let nature do its course. Survival-of-the-fittest kind of approach. And just say, if it knocks me out, it knocks me out. I’m going to be OK.”
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Cousins did later say that wearing a mask is more about “being respectful to other people,” and less about his own personal thoughts.
On Tuesday, the NFL and the NFLPA announced that 10 players and team personnel have tested positive out of 8,739 people from Aug. 21-29, a total of 58,621 tests.
Cousins also had a chance to talk about his time at MSU, where he started in the same quarterback room with eventual Super Bowl champions and NFL veterans Brian Hoyer (who could be the starter in New England) and Nick Foles (who could be the starter in Chicago). He also mentioned that in 2007, when Cousins joined MSU, the team had just lost Drew Stanton, and a couple of years later, it would get Connor Cook.
“It’s pretty remarkable, and I think it’s just as remarkable that no one seems to know that,” Cousins said. “When you talk college quarterbacks, you think Purdue, you think USC, there are other schools that jump to mind. But Michigan State, people don’t usually think about that. But when you add up the total years in the NFL over the last decade, it would be hard-pressed to find another school that has as many guys with that many NFL years stacked up, the way we had.”
Contact Kirkland Crawford: kcrawford@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @HiKirkHere.