Kirk Cousins ​​hosted the Kirk Cousins ​​of Football games on Thursday nights

For all the things that made Thursday such a heated battle – Pete Alonso's heroics, Terry Francona's refusal to remain retired, the only person who didn't vote Caitlin Clark WNBA Rookie of the Year, and her smart decision , remaining anonymous, Antonio Pierce's suspension in exile by the NCAA – nothing beats this:

Well, okay. Alonso beat it through vigor, as the ninth-inning playoff home run beat the Week 5 pants at any cost. But the idea that Kirk Cousins ​​would repeat his previous moment of embarrassing virality eight years later with a celebration that's far more visually stunning probably stole the night for casual Trainwreck fans. Part of it is just the result of the standing-on-his-hinds dog aspect of Kirk Cousins ​​doing anything even moderately spicy, but it was also so far outside the context of his career. We're betting he didn't do that on any of the $409 million in contracts he signed between then and now.

No, Cousins' career was distinguished above all by his unerring instinct for maximizing his earnings, both through his timing and through tightness on the spot. No one thought much of him or his Atlanta Falcons — typically, “you don’t think of the Atlanta Falcons” — when they and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers played paywall football on Thursday night. They shouldn't do that either. It's NFC South, and the four planets within it orbit a sun of incandescent, flickering dust. If you had fantasy players on either team, you would finish seventh in your pool no matter what you did.

So it was interesting, but not shocking, that Cousins ​​had one of his occasional forays Thursday night — 34-for-46 for 385 yards and three tuddies in a game the Falcons had been losing since halftime. With two minutes left, Cousins ​​might be able to pull out a win, but it wouldn't be memorable. They were certainly nice numbers, but he had done numbers like that before. You don't remember any of these games, do you?

And then, as Cousins ​​stood on the sideline after the two-minute warning, pretending to pay attention to head coach Raheem Morris and offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, he decided: “No, this is not the time for prudence or smart chain moves .” . This is the moment for my career review.

What followed was Kirk Cousins' football life compressed into 186 seconds, starting with the safest bet of all: He led Darnell Mooney too far on a fourth-and-15 from the Falcons' 20, hitting Bucs linebacker Lavonte David straight into the numbers. Just another play-killer from the most regressed quarterback in the game, right?

NO! Tampa had four plays against the Atlanta 28, promptly managed to force itself out of field goal range — we told you it was the NFC South — and punched into the end zone, giving Cousins ​​a half-court advantage in 1:14 could cover. Which of course he did, because for Cousins ​​no bad deed goes unpunished, just as surely as no good deed goes unpunished. Cousins ​​completed an exemplary nine-play drive that included two tactical tackles, the second with one second remaining. The Falcons being the Falcons, they then incurred a delay of game penalty, making Younghoe Koo's game-winning field goal attempt a 52-yarder. Koo has an impressive leg, but it had already let him down twice, from 41 and 54 meters (the leg was blocked, to be fair).

So of course Koo makes it, and of course the Falcons win the throw in overtime, allowing Cousins ​​to prove he can beat you, like he did with the pick and the game-winning drive And himself in many ways.

This time it was the other boys. Two short throws to the right to Drake London, Cousins' new version of Terry McLaurin; When London was injured in the second period, Cousins ​​threw a 45-yard dart-and-go to KhaDarel Hodge for the game-winning score. The whole thing only took 66 seconds. Falcons 36, Bucs 30 and what about? The, Pete Alonso?

Cousins' final numbers were career highs in completions (42), attempts (58), yards (509) and touchdown passes (four); The victory increased his career win-loss record (the most meaningless statistic in all of sports) to a whopping 79-69-2, an average of 9-8. That's Kirk Cousins-y in a nutshell – good enough to get right to the edge of the postseason, and Kirk Cousins-like enough to just hang around for a decade. It's also the Falcons in a nutshell, just less close to the postseason. While we're at it, the NFC South in a nutshell. If you have a nut allergy, this could be the reason.

But numbers won't tell Kirk Cousins' story one way or the other. He knows how to monetize his unsettling silliness in a way that only Philip Rivers can do in the sport – a very different vibrational frequency, but about as strange in substance. But for a competition that makes more sense when it comes to bloodless silliness, strange intensity and bouts of unpredictable virtuosity, the true contender is Adam Sandler, who has a similar fortune. Maybe that's the way to look at it in the end – Adam Sandler beat the Bucs on Thursday Night Football. If you're going to steal something on Thursday night, you might as well be weird.