The Eagles released linebacker Zach Brown Monday, a day after their defense wasshredded by Kirk Cousins and a Vikings offense that until very recently resembled a headlesschicken. The shit-canning is all the more embarrassing for Brown for coming after he ran his mouth about Cousins, and then joined his teammates in getting pantsed by the underwhelming quarterback.
Minnesota racked up 38 points and 447 yards of offense Sunday afternoon, which included 333 yards passing and four touchdowns from Cousins. It was Cousins’s second strong performance in two weeks, and he needed them both after a miserable showing in a loss to the Bears in Week 4 seemed to drive his top two receivers into full-blown despair. Adam Thielen had steam billowing out of his ears from the effort to avoid calling Cousins a pile of crap, and Stefon Diggs was so fed up that he temporarily vanished from practice. Cousins repaired his relationship with Thielen, first by publicly apologizing and then by hitting Thielen for 130 yards and two scores in a Week 5 win over Atlanta.
But Diggs was still grumpy ahead of Week 6, and Cousins still hadn’t (hasn’t?) exactly convinced anybody of his excellence. Brown, who was formerly teammates with Cousins when the two were in Washington—and who is no stranger to talking his way into an awkward situation—was obviously among the skeptics, saying ahead of their matchup that the key to beating the Vikings is to force Cousins to, well, play quarterback:
“I think every defense is going to want that guy to throw the ball. For me, that’s probably the weakest part of their offense is him. Everything else is good. They’ve got a good running game, probably one of the best in the league. They have real good receivers. You just want them to pass the ball. You want Kirk Cousins to get it in his hands.”
Kirk Cousins is not generally someone you have to worry about getting charged up by bulletin board material, but it’s a wise policy all the same to save your shit-talking for after you’ve won a game. Instead, the Eagles spent their Sunday getting smushed, and afterward Brown was saltier than seawater when asked about Cousins:
Brown will have to catch on somewhere else after the Eagles cut him loose Monday if he wants another shot at proving his point about Cousins. The Eagles would not be releasing Brown if they felt his contributions to their defense couldn’t be replaced, but it’s worth mentioning that both ESPN and Pro Football Talk indicated that Brown’s blabbering about Cousins “didn’t help.”
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