06-03-2018, 04:03 PM
The moment seemed at the time like a fleeting interaction between a team that had already traded its top pick for Carson Palmer and a prospect whose NFL potential appeared uncertain.
But in that 2012 exchange in Indianapolis, 33-year-old Raiders quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo matched wits with 23-year-old Michigan State passer Kirk Cousins, and something clicked.
DeFilippo had been impressed by Cousins’ stirring speech at the 2011 Big Ten kickoff luncheon; Cousins was struck by the preparedness of an athletic director’s son who vowed at 10 years old he’d be coaching in the NFL. The meeting yielded no immediate fruit — the Raiders took Utah tackle Tony Bergstrom 95th overall, while the Redskins took Cousins seven picks later to be Robert Griffin III’s backup. But the two men, meticulous types not quick to forget a name, walked away impressed with one another, and made a point to follow the other from a distance.
The Vikings, who’d coached Cousins and Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson at the Senior Bowl that January, were preparing for their second year with Christian Ponder. They couldn’t have known then that the future of their offense — which would culminate six years later with an offensive coordinator job for DeFilippo and a record-breaking contract for Cousins — was being written in some other hotel suite.
That meeting in Indianapolis, though, ultimately sowed the seeds for a partnership between men who appear to be birds of a feather.
http://www.startribune.com/vikings-john-...484395031/
But in that 2012 exchange in Indianapolis, 33-year-old Raiders quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo matched wits with 23-year-old Michigan State passer Kirk Cousins, and something clicked.
DeFilippo had been impressed by Cousins’ stirring speech at the 2011 Big Ten kickoff luncheon; Cousins was struck by the preparedness of an athletic director’s son who vowed at 10 years old he’d be coaching in the NFL. The meeting yielded no immediate fruit — the Raiders took Utah tackle Tony Bergstrom 95th overall, while the Redskins took Cousins seven picks later to be Robert Griffin III’s backup. But the two men, meticulous types not quick to forget a name, walked away impressed with one another, and made a point to follow the other from a distance.
The Vikings, who’d coached Cousins and Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson at the Senior Bowl that January, were preparing for their second year with Christian Ponder. They couldn’t have known then that the future of their offense — which would culminate six years later with an offensive coordinator job for DeFilippo and a record-breaking contract for Cousins — was being written in some other hotel suite.
That meeting in Indianapolis, though, ultimately sowed the seeds for a partnership between men who appear to be birds of a feather.
http://www.startribune.com/vikings-john-...484395031/
