Kirk Cousins is twisting himself into knots with his comments on masks during Covid

The coronavirus pandemic isn’t going away. Now nearly six months since Rudy Gobert’s positive test shut down the sports world and much of the real world, the virus continues to infect and kill people across the United States. We’ve seen cases spike as college students have returned to campuses across the country. We’ve seen cities that opened back up too early need to impose restrictions again. At this point, there are a few things we all know can slow the spread of the virus.

All of this is annoying but none of it is particularly difficult. At least it shouldn’t be. Unfortunately, there are still too many people who think social distancing or wearing a mask is a great affront to their personal liberty. The pandemic rages on, for who knows how long.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins was asked about masks during a taped episode of the “10 Questions with Kyle Brandt” podcast. You can listen to the full episode here. At one point, Brandt asked Cousins how worried he was about the virus on a scale of 10-1. “If 1 is 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,’ where do you land?”

Here was Cousins’ response: “I’m not gonna call anybody stupid, for the trouble it would get me in. But I’m about a .000001.”

If you believe that seems like an irresponsible thing for a person of Cousins’ stature to say, many other people would agree! Cousins elaborated on his feelings about masks later in the interview:

“I want to respect what other people’s concerns are,” Cousins told Brandt. “For me personally, just talking no one else can get the virus, what is your concern if you get it, I would say I’m going to go about my daily life. If I get it, I’m going to ride it out. I’m gonna let nature do its course. Survival-of-the-fittest approach. And just say, if it knocks me out, it knocks me out. I’m going to be OK. You know, even if I die. If I die, I die. I kind of have peace about that. That’s really where I fall on it, so my opinion about wearing a mask is about being respectful to other people. It really has nothing to do with my personal thoughts.”

Cousins is right about one thing: wearing a mask is about being respectful to other people. As long as we all understand that, it should be a rather easy choice to wear to mask.

Here are some more comments from Cousins during the podcast episode:

It’s possible for someone to read this and say Cousins is doing the right thing. He talks about following protocol and respecting his teammates. At the same time, he voices his true beliefs which are couched in dangerous ideas that are harmful to the public. Cousins’ remarks are only going to embolden people who already don’t like wearing masks. Ultimately, Cousins is twisting himself into a knot to say that he personally doesn’t think wearing masks is worth it but he’ll do it keep other people comfortable.

OK? Like Cousins said: “You know, even if I die. If I die, I die.”

Cousins is probably used to being publicly ridiculed at this point. I mean, have you see him on a grill? His stupid comments about Covid at least got America to come together for one of its favorite past times: dunking on Kirk Cousins.

Wear a mask so we can all get back to normalcy: making fun of Kirk Cousins for failing on the football field in crunch time rather than his bad opinions on global pandemics.