EAGAN, Minn. -- Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago before spending his high school years in western Michigan, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins grew familiar with the rivalries in the NFC North.
During his time with the Redskins, the quarterback faced all four teams, compiling a 4-2 record against NFC North opponents with a Total QBR of 83.1, the second-highest in the NFL the past three seasons.
On Sunday, Cousins will get his first taste of the Vikings-Green Bay Packers rivalry, one he has admired from afar. He understands the early playoff implications for the two teams expected to be on a collision course for the division crown.
“Just the math of needing to win your division to get a home playoff game,” Cousins said. “I think the math would say we want to win our divisional games.”
Quarterback play will have a considerable role in the outcome, as two of the game’s highest-paid QBs will face off at least twice per season, creating marquee matchups for the foreseeable future. Cousins has gone head-to-head with Aaron Rodgers only twice in his career, losing to Green Bay in the 2015 NFC wild-card game and outdueling the Packers in a 42-24 regular-season victory in 2016. Even before those meetings, however, he had respect for Rodgers.
"He flies at a little bit of a different altitude than I do,” Cousins said. “He’s done a lot in his career. Certainly something a guy like myself is chasing to achieve a lot of what he has already done. I tell him when I see guys like him or himself, I just say, ‘I study you. I study you and watch your film and try to learn from you because you are a guy that I want to study and want to learn from.’”
Following his first victory with Minnesota in Week 1, Cousins settled in to watch Green Bay’s opener at home. Having studied the MVP quarterback, very little surprised him about the way Rodgers extended plays and dropped perfectly placed passes in the back of the end zone. Rodgers also exhibited a level of toughness after he sprained his knee.
“I found myself sitting on my couch as I watched, saying to my family and friends that I was watching with, 'He is probably going to bring them back,'” Cousins said. “Sure enough, he did.”
Cousins' most recent outing against Green Bay resulted in one of the best fourth-quarter performances of his career. It has been nearly two years, but the impression he made on the Packers, then and the only other time he has played them, let them know what they’re up against.
“He’s shown exactly the type of quarterback he is,” Packers linebacker Clay Matthews said. “He’s not going to make many mistakes, he’s going to fit the ball in, he knows where he’s going with it, and he can take advantage of teams if you present one thing.
“We’ll see if it’s like the first time we played him or like the second time, because those went two very different ways.”