New Packers QBs Coach Sean Mannion Already Was Coach to Kirk Cousins

“The dynamic was almost the opposite where you felt like Sean was just so intelligent at such a high capacity that he was always going to pick things up faster than me, know the league better than me, understand coverage better than me, and so I loved that because I felt like I was going to have a guy in the room who was going to push me and I was going to be smarter after each meeting, and after each week of study I was going to be smarter having been around him. I also never felt alone because I always felt like I was better off studying with Sean than studying by myself because of how much I was going to glean from him.”

So, how does that translate to Mannion’s new role mentoring Jordan Love? Cousins started by focusing on the big picture.

“There’s innovators in coaching and then there’s imitators, and imitators can be good but the innovators are the ones who are really out front doing it,” he said. “I think Matt LaFleur’s one of those guys, I think Steno’s one of those guys. I think Sean Mannion can be one of those guys who are not only going to see what other people are doing well around the league and copy it but also come up with the things that people around the league are going to copy.

“I think he’s got a good way about him where he’s not going to ride the rollercoaster and get too high after a win and too low after a loss. He’s going to stay steady and humble and hungry, which is how he played and I think how he’ll be as a coach. Just very prepared, very detail-oriented, very high capacity. All those traits made him an effective college and pro quarterback but also will make an effective coach.”

Early in their time together, Cousins and Mannion were focused on doing their jobs to the best of their ability. Later, though, Mannion discussed his desire to become a coach.

“We started talking about some philosophies or how we want to coach quarterbacks or how we’d want to be coached,” Cousins said. “He’s really been thoughtful working through that and intentional, and he’s created a really good philosophy around things. I think that’s already carrying over now to this offseason and how he’s interacting with his quarterbacks and what he’s trying to build there.”

Those conversations with how Cousins wants to be coached should carry over to Mannion’s role with Love, who is entering Year 6 in the NFL and Year 3 as the starter. Love has a lot of experience, whether it was by watching Aaron Rodgers, learning from Tom Clements or his 33 NFL starts, but he doesn’t have all the answers.

“I think you always want to be learning and you always want to be getting sharper and you want to know what’s been going on,” Cousins said. “Where is football going? If changes have to be made to my game, the way I play, the way reads are happening in order to be successful, then I want to know what those changes are.

“If there are things that I just need to keep doing consistently and don’t have to change a thing, I want to know what those things are.  So, I want someone to help kind of guide me to where does my quarterback play need to go? How does it need to change and how does it need to stay the same?”

Love has had young backups with Sean Clifford and Malik Willis. Mannion doesn’t have Clements’ extensive career as a coach, but he was in the NFL from 2015, when he was a third-round pick by the Rams, through 2023. So, he’ll be able to offer a fresh viewpoint.

“I want him to give me the whys behind things,” Cousins continued. “So, not just what happened and telling me what happened and how I could be better, but why it happened? Let’s go to the root cause of what happened, good or bad, because it’s really the why that I can work on and improve.

“Sean had the ability to strategically think through things at a high level where you felt like you were never going to get ahead of him. You were never going to have a question that was going to stump him, if you will. You just felt like he was going to have a clarity of thought and ability to process in a way that conversations were always leading to improvement and getting somewhere.”

Mannion’s ability to see at the macro and micro levels comes naturally, Cousins said. Growing up around football – his father was a high school coach – certainly didn’t hurt.

Cousins called it “hardware” and “software,” a meshing of natural intellect and smart mentors.

“So, there’s innate traits that you’re born with, it’s genetic,” Cousins said. “Sean has really high capacity mentally. That’s a trait that you either have or you don’t, and Sean has it in spades. That’s something you’re born with – that’s more the hardware. The software is the good coaches he was around.”

Cousins mentioned a bunch of them, including LaFleur and Sean McVay with the Rams and Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, that will have him prepared for this first really big opportunity in the next phase of his football career.

“When you have a high-, high-level hardware and you get around really good software, you can download a lot because there’s all this untapped potential,” Cousins said. “That’s where I get excited about with Sean. When you get around the right coaches and knowing what he’s got to work with, it’s a great marriage right now in Green Bay for him to develop as a coach and to know what it could lead to.”