Ask Vikings teammates Tom Compton and Kirk Cousins how their friendship formed so quickly — when both were 23-year-old rookies with the Washington Redskins — and they cite highbrow and lowbrow material almost equally.
"We're both from that heartland, Midwest area — same age. We both went to college, and we took school seriously," Cousins said. "I think in a lot of ways, we're deeper thinkers. We enjoy learning other things — not just football — so we can have a conversation outside of football."
Said Compton: "It stood out pretty quickly. You throw in a random '[The] Office' or 'Heavyweights' quote, and the other guy picked it up, and you know you're in good company. Even just quoting random commercials from growing up, and them knowing the other part of it, you're like, 'That's my guy right there.' "
Cousins will start at quarterback and Compton is expected to start at left guard when the Vikings open their season on Sunday.
When they roomed together for two seasons in Washington, they built a bond that took them as many places away from football as it did when the two were on the field at the same time. Compton wasn't in the Redskins' starting lineup for any of Cousins' 11 starts during their first three seasons together in Washington; by the time Cousins became the full-time starter in 2015, Compton played just 210 snaps, after logging 650 the year before.
And yet, there was Compton, the Rosemount native, filling the cameo role Cousins was supposed to play in 2015's "Sharknado 3," and traveling to Nashville after the 2016 season to play drums while Cousins recorded vocals with Midnight Pilot, his high school buddy Kyle Schonewill's band.
Their friends and family have heard the recordings, Cousins said, and the copies won't be distributed any further than that.
"It was all covers: Switchfoot, Needtobreathe, Matt Kearney, Ben Rector," Cousins said. "As a joke, we did a Blink 182 song to give him a challenge on the drums, to do something really fast, which he did well.
