Sell Kirk Cousins now, while his coach is still vouching for him

Sell Kirk Cousins this week. He's playing well, and Klint Kubiak stood at a podium on Monday and told everybody so, which is exactly why you should be shopping him tonight. A coach vouching for his quarterback after four straight losses is the best price tag that quarterback is ever going to carry.

Here's what Kubiak said. "There is no controversy there," and Cousins is "playing at a very high level." He starts Sunday at the Jets. Then came the part your league-mates are going to skim past: Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 pick, is going to play at some point, just not this week. NFL.com and ProFootballTalk both carried it. Read those two answers side by side. One of them is about Sunday. The other one is about the rest of the season.

I know the case for holding, because it's a good one. Cousins leads the league with 16 touchdown passes through seven weeks, with 1,877 yards and five picks. He threw for 295 and two scores in Sunday's 35-21 loss to the Rams. The Jets are 2-5. If you own him, you're picturing three touchdowns at MetLife and a fatter offer next Monday. I'd be picturing it too.

But his price was never about his stat line. It's about the question hanging over his job, and Monday didn't close it. Kubiak opened it himself on Sunday when he said the staff was thinking about everything. The Raiders started 3-0 and have dropped four straight, and the stuff that's losing games isn't the quarterback. ESPN had the defense giving up 35.8 points a game since Week 4. Kubiak said you can't win in this league throwing as much as they are. Cousins can put up 300 yards against the Jets and nobody on that defense gets better because of it. Every loss pulls the rookie closer, and a league-leading touchdown total doesn't protect a 3-4 team's veteran from that.

Nora Pike told Cousins owners this morning not to dump him for scraps in a panic. She's right, and I'm not telling you to. Panic is selling him the morning Mendoza gets named, when everybody in your league read the same headline you did. Selling him today, with "no controversy" stapled to his name, is the opposite of panic. For once you're the one holding the good news.

So go find the manager who's a quarterback short and heard "no controversy" as a promise. Ask for something that still matters in two years, a younger piece or a future rookie pick. If all they'll offer is a backup's price, keep him and start him against the Jets, because you don't have to take a bad deal to make a good point.

Here's how I end up looking dumb. The Raiders win in New Jersey, Kubiak rides Cousins into December, and I talked you out of the league's touchdown leader for a pick that never pans out. Fine, I'll wear that. I'd still rather sell a quarterback a week before his coach changes his mind than the morning after he does.

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