Arrowhead Report

Colin Cowherd Did The Thing Again, and I'm Part of the Problem

Yes, I know this makes me part of the problem. But Colin Cowherd did the thing, and what was I going to do — not talk about it? ...That probably would have been better.

Joshua Brisco

Yes, I know this makes me part of the problem. But Colin Cowherd did the thing, and what was I going to do — not talk about it?

...That probably would have been better.

It all started with this tweet, first seen on The Herd on FS1:

Boom. Here comes the engagement.

The NFL's top five quarterbacks, strictly by arm talent. An innocuous, very-June sports talk radio topic. And Patrick Mahomes is... nowhere to be found? Jared Goff is at number five? No Carson Wentz or Aaron Rodgers? What the hell?

That tweet made its way around the internet first, before The Herd account followed it up with this five-minute-long clip of Cowherd explaining his definition of "arm talent" and unveiling his top five.

After talking about how he once considered changing his name to Sky Bannister, Cowherd sets the terms for the argument. "Arm talent" is actually about ball placement now, but whatever. He later discusses how it's about "the easiest ball to catch." Again, even under Cowherd's terms, it's absurd to say that Mahomes "can be a little erratic." 

Mahomes has a lower career interception percentage than any of his Top 5 "arm talent" quarterbacks and a higher completion percentage than everyone but Brees. Mahomes' ball placement is, already, historically remarkable. The arm angles that Cowherd brushes off as recklessness are almost always direct means to an end: putting the ball where only his receiver can catch it.

But this created argument's absurdity isn't even the point. Cowherd had a silly opinion, argued under poorly-defined terms, and tweeted it out as a graphic and a five-minute snippet that racked up tens of thousands of engagements in two hours. So why would he stop?

He found a way to make Kansas City Chiefs fans care about his opinion, purely by not including Mahomes, on a Friday in June. So really, he's winning. Those clicks turn to cents, and those cents turn to dollars, and those dollars mean that Cowherd will do a different version of the same thing next month, and we'll all be dumber for it. Because we're part of the problem.

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Joshua Brisco
JOSHUA BRISCO

Joshua Brisco is the editor and publisher of Kansas City Chiefs On SI and has covered the Chiefs professionally since 2017 across audio and written media.

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