FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday, November 20th, 2016
“FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA” FEATURES BOB COSTAS’ INTERVIEW WITH WASHINGTON REDSKINS QB KIRK COUSINS
“I haven’t been entitled. I wake up every morning feeling a need to prove myself.” – Cousins on disproving the naysayers
“I’d love to have Cris (Collinsworth’s) job someday, but I think there’s a lot of people who would.” – Cousins
STAMFORD, Conn. – Nov. 20, 2016 – For tonight’s Week 11 edition of NBC’s Football Night in America, the most-watched weekly studio show in sports, host Bob Costas interviews Washington Redskins QB Kirk Cousins. Football Night will also include highlights, analysis and reaction to earlier Week 11 games ahead of tonight’s Packers-Redskins Sunday Night Football showdown.
Football Night airs each Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on NBC. Costas will host tonight’s program live from FedExField in Hyattsville, Md. He will be joined on site by Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth and sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.
Dan Patrick co-hosts Football Night from NBC Sports Group’s Studio 1, and is joined by Hall of Fame head coach Tony Dungy, two-time Super Bowl champion Rodney Harrison, and Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk on NBCSN, NBCSports.com and NBC Sports Radio. Paul Burmeister will report from CenturyLink Field in Seattle, Wash., on the Eagles-Seahawks game.
INTERVIEW: Below are excerpts from Costas’ interview with Cousins. If used, please note the mandatory credit: “In an exclusive interview airing tonight on Football Night in America.”
KIRK COUSINS WITH BOB COSTAS
Bob Costas: “I think your dad who first said this, and others have then picked up on it – ‘Underappreciated and overlooked is the story of your athletic life.’ Is that true?”
Kirk Cousins: “I think it has been, to some degree. I wasn’t a big recruit coming out of high school. I think I even surprised a lot of my high school coaches and teammates with the career I had at Michigan State. I wasn’t a first-round pick, or thought to be a first-round pick coming out of the draft, and really wasn’t ever expected to be a main starter in the NFL. Every step in the process I’ve had to kind of overachieve and prove people wrong. If anything, it’s kept me hungry, and I haven’t been entitled. I wake up every morning feeling a need to prove myself.”
Cousins on working with former Bucs and Raiders head coach Jon Gruden, who called him ‘The Vigilante’: “At the time, I was coming off a season where I had been benched and I had thrown just about as many interceptions as touchdowns. I had made a lot of good plays, but it was somewhat reckless. And he called me the vigilante because he said I took the law into my own hands. His point was, ‘You have to rein it in, you have to tighten it down to where you can consistently produce at a high level without the negative plays that come along with it.’ I’ve tried to get away from being a vigilante and just be a great manager of the game, making good decisions play in and play out.”
Cousins on his work ethic, even when he served as Washington’s backup QB: “I need reps. I need mentally to recognize things from film study and really know these plays inside and out, so I can make quick decisions and progress quickly and get the ball out of my hand. If I do that, that’s the best chance for me to be successful.”
Cousins on his future prospects as a broadcaster: “I’ve called the spring game for Big Ten Network for Michigan State. It’s a great opportunity to still stay around the game, to be able to feel like you’re close to the action. I’m very analytical so I think it fits the way I think. I’d love to have Cris (Collinsworth’s) job someday, but I think there’s a lot of people who would. Hopefully I can play well enough on the field first.”
–FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA–
