Before the start of the 2020 season can we agree on one thing?
Joe Johnson
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One of, if not the, most divisive Vikings-related topics I’ve ever come across during my 36-years on this planet has been the Kirk Cousins debate. As the first person in Vikings media to call for the team to go all out to sign Cousins back in 2018, and also the guy who seemingly wrote an article per week defensing Cousins in 2019, you already know where I stand.
If not, this article about Cousins’ Pro Bowl performance has a list of my 2019 Cousins articles.
Need proof? Or want to catch up on the emotional/mental roller coaster that was my 2019-20 season?
Win in New Orleans Proves Signing Cousins was the RIGHT Move
– Gary Kubiak: The QB Whisperer and his Influence on this Explosive Vikings Offense
– Was Denver Cousins’ Best Game? Does it Matter?
– Is Cousins the MVP? Does it Matter?
– Has Cousins Earned an Extension?
– In Retrospect, Was Cousins’ Contract a Bargain?
One of the larger points of cognitive dissonance, to me, amongst Vikings fans is the fact that outside of perhaps Daunte Culpepper and Teddy Bridgewater, who both were cut down in their primes thanks to gruesome knee injuries, this team has never had a franchise quarterback. Or at least, one that wasn’t way past his prime a la *DEEP INHALE* Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, Jeff George, Brett Favre, Donovan McNabb, etc.
Why, then, were people so quick and consistent in their hatred of Cousins? Well, it’s complicated. Many still wanted Teddy Bridgewater to somehow use the Infinity Gauntlet to appear in 2018 like Old Captain America, giving his 2016 self his vibranium ACL.
Their love for Teddy carried over to Case Keenum, who had a magical season in 2017. So, there was a mix of emotion and a “if it aint broke don’t fix it” mentality with Keenum, who got the Vikings all the way to the NFC Championship game.
Then came the record/contract breaking amount of money that the Vikings gave Cousins which many deemed cap busting, too much and unsustainable. While his deal, in retrospect, doesn’t seem like that much (at least under normal circumstances, in which the salary cap usually increases by around $10 million each year), the sticker shock combined with Cousins’ lack of success in Washington was apparently too much for Minnesota’s Scandinavian values.
That brought up multiple narratives around Cousins. He couldn’t beat teams with winning records, then he did. He couldn’t win in prime time. Then he did. He couldn’t handle pass rush pressure, then he did (both 2018 & 2019). He couldn’t put the team in his shoulders, then he did (Denver). He couldn’t lead a comeback, then he did (Denver, again). He couldn’t win a playoff game, then he did, etc.
That left one major narrative left, the most important of all. Cousins hasn’t won a Monday Night Football game. I’m being facetious as outside of the constant of MNF, that doesn’t tell you anything about the opponent or why those losses happened.
Thankfully, for you, and I guess unfortunately for me, I won’t have to write weekly articles defending Cousins as it appears that most in Vikings media have come around and realized what the team must also think (per his massive two-year extension), Cousins is a good quarterback.
In fact, he’s better than good. He had numbers for a pretty significant stretch in 2019 that mirrored 2018 MVP and current most starry of NFL superstars, Patrick Mahomes’ numbers. As NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport pointed out after eight games.
Statistics via @NFLResearch tell an interesting story on #Vikings QB Kirk Cousins after last night.
— Look at Cousins the last 4 games and how he’s come on
— Compare Cousins’ start to that of last year’s MVP Patrick Mahomes through 8 games. ??♂️ pic.twitter.com/fukVUTipzc
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 25, 2019
When you take into account the fact that the Vikings offensive line was 27th in the league in terms of pass blocking, you start to see why Cousins is slowly showing people around the league that he is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
Just ask the folks as Football Outsiders (as reported on by Vikings.com author Eric Smith).
They recently ranked NFL QBs by a stat they created called Completion Percentage Over Expected (CPOE). Which they define as follows:
“which estimates how many passes a quarterback completed compared to what an average quarterback would have completed based on each throw’s distance, the yards needed for a first down, and to which side of the field the pass was thrown.
This is turned into a rate stat: completion percentage over expected, or CPOE, that shows just how much more accurate a passer is than league average, adjusted for the situations the passer found himself in. Note that our CPOE might be different from other models found elsewhere on the internet because we’re removing passes thrown away on purpose, batted down at the line or thrown when the quarterback was hit in motion.”
Where does Cousins rank in that regard?
“Cousins, another player who benefited tremendously from play-action passing, led the league with a plus-9.3% CPOE on passes at least 10 yards downfield. The Vikings have done spectacularly well in this stat in recent years; they’re the only team to have at least a plus-5.0% CPOE in each of the past five seasons, with Cousins following Case Keenum, Sam Bradford and Teddy Bridgewater. Can Cousins make it six-for-six in 2020? The loss of Stefon Diggs hurts; Cousins’ CPOE falls to plus-5.0% if you remove Diggs’ targets from the equation.”
In fact, Cousins is the second most accurate career passer in NFL History, behind some scrub named Drew Brees. That isn’t some 2016 Bradfordian dink and dunk statistic, it is a career in which Cousins has also been one of the most accurate passers down the field.
That’s why the Vikings, a team that has made it very clear by their offensive line personnel that they’re a run-first outfit, extended Cousins before their running back Dalvin Cook.
That is also why former Vikings receiver Stefon Diggs lead the league in grabs of 40+ yards in 2019 and only hit 1,000 yards when Cousins came to town, and most likely why Diggs garnered the trade value he did and why Diggs is also in for a rude awakening in Buffalo (going from Cousins to the anti-Cousins in Josh Allen).
With those in Vikings media coming around to the fact that Cousins, who has said he plans on playing for many more years to come, is a great quarterback.
It is really past the time that Vikings fans realize the same thing, as it is safe to say that Cousins with even average protection could end up as a perennial MVP candidate and that without him this team would be in rough shape.
Seem like hyperbole? He was in the running in 2019 whilst also literally in the running for every single pass play as he was provided next to no pocket by the Vikings’ front five. One could also argue that without the record breaking start he and Adam Thielen had in 2018, a start in which the defense was in utter disarray and there were injuries everywhere, that season would’ve mirrored every NFC Championship loss hangover season in my lifetime (1999, 2001, 2010).
If moving Vikings center-turned-left guard Pat Elflein back to his so-called natural position of right guard can improve on the stellar work that Josh Kline did in 2019 and Ezra Cleveland/Dakota Dozier or Aviante Collins can improve upon Elflein’s atrocious 2019, then we just might see Cousins at his maximum potential in 2020.
Losing Diggs will sting, but Cousins was the only quarterback nit named Philip Rivers to have 4,000 yards passing and 25 touchdowns from 2015 to 2018. He set the Vikings single season completion record with 405 in 2018, etc.
He also passed the 20,000 yard milestone in 2019 and he did so faster than Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson, and Tom Brady.
Most importantly, though, is that if things work out in 2019… Cousins can finally do what every little boy dreams of while playing pick-up football with their friends… Winning a Monday Night Football game?
Even if that doesn’t happen, the Vikings are lucky to have Cousins helming their offense and we should all recognize that at this point and start focusing on things that actually matter like the fact that we finally do have a franchise quarterback, but we are squandering the opportunity that comes with it by not investing in protecting him.
Until the team does, Cousins will still get labeled by the most unreasonable of us as a flashy “garbage time” quarterback. No other Vikings quarterback has been compared against such unreasonable standards or single-handedly blamed for the teams nearly 60 years with one NFL Championship and no Super Bowl rings.
So why Cousins? Cause he has great stats? Yeah. How dare he. Because he makes market rate for his services? What an overpaid jerk! Because he hasn’t cloned himself so he can play QB and right and left guard? I mean, talk about lazy!
Or maybe its because we’re all afraid to admit that with Cousins this team has a real shot at doing something special and it feels like that opportunity is still being squandered by a management group that would rather have offensive lineman who can run to the second level than ones that don’t force their quarterback to run for his life just to complete a pass.
In the mean time we can all take solace in the fact that the Vikings officially have a better quarterback than the Packers for the first time since the first Bush was in office.
To me, that’s worth every dollar.