If Russell Wilson’s 2020 was a “career year”, how is Cousins bad?
Joe Johnson
|
I can already hear the cacophony of keyboards being angrily typed on from around the state of Minnesota.
One thing that has increasingly struck me as interesting is the fact that the Minnesota Vikings faithful are somehow bending over backward to explain away the one thing we’ve always wanted, a sub-40 (ish) franchise quarterback.
I’ve covered that topic to a point of concern by those around me, but one tidbit that I feel is something I haven’t pointed out and that most Kirk Cousins couldn’t (or more so shouldn’t) respond to (as I’m aware that they will explain this away with their favorite (incorrect) narrative, Cousins in garbage time) is as follows.
First, let’s get that garbage time narrative out of the way.
Now, the tidbit.
Russell Wilson has long been considered a top three quarterback in the NFL. While that’s been the case for nearly a decade, it was 2020 that many considered to be his (regular season) magnum opus.
While he had a better statistical start of his season than how things ended, he was thought of as the main opponent of Aaron Rodgers for the MVP race. So. What does he have to do with Cousins or the Vikings?
This…
That’s right.
Your eyes don’t deceive you.
Kirk Cousins and Russell Wilson had incredibly similar statistical seasons. I brought this fact up on our weekly KDLM Sports radio show, The VikingsTerritory Breakdown, last night and both Joe Oberle and Tim McNiff said the difference was the wins and losses (and the garbage time thing).
We’ve already established the fact that the garbage time stat is a much a non-starter as the prime time games narrative (as Cousins has performed BETTER in prime time games). What’s left is that a quarterback is also not responsible for defense or special teams.
Oberle and McNiff pointed out the 2019 Vikings / Seahawks game in which Wilson lead the Seahawks on a game winning drive, to which I replied/questioned whether or not they were actually blaming the Vikings defense and it’s inability to stop Wilson on Cousins.
The larger point or distinction they were trying to make is that Cousins isn’t a winner. My argument is that Wilson wants out of Seattle because he’s been sacked more than any quarterback ever through nine seasons.
Yet, the Seahawks offensive line ranked in the mid-Teens in 2020 as compared to the Vikings’ high 20’s pass blocking unit. So, Wilson had more time and is considered to be elite and is coming off of his best season yet… But Cousins with more yards, five less touchdowns, the same number of interceptions and near the same QB-rating but is an overpaid hack?
But somehow he’s also not a winner despite the fact that the two seasons the Vikings haven’t made the playoffs were on the defense and special teams, not Cousins?
He doesn’t put the team on his shoulder, or win when it matters most? Even though you could much more easily make that determination about the Zimmer era Vikings defense (yet many of you angrily comment whenever I say that the Vikings won’t win until Zimmer is gone)?
Is Cousins as good or better than Wilson? No. But they’re the 1A and 1B in terms of play-action passing in the league, and my argument is that Cousins is close enough to have earned the respect of a fan base that is under a decade removed from the named Christian Ponder, Matt Cassel, Teddy Bridgewater, Josh Freeman, Donovan McNabb, etc.
You must be logged in to post a comment.