Kirk Cousins Pegged in QB Tier below Derek Carr
Dustin Baker
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Former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannebaum is the proprietor of The 33rd Team, a football “think tank” website. He opined this week that Derek Carr belongs in a quarterback ranking tier above Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Plopping Cousins into mediocre statuses and classifications is nothing new as the 33-year-old possesses a 59-59-2 “quarterback record,” a metric some football fans consider infallible. Like a tennis player’s win-loss record in an individual sport, folks enjoy assigning win-loss numbers to a quarterback in a 53-man team sport.
Tannebaum situated all 2022 starting quarterbacks into tiers, and Cousins lives in Tier 4, per the ex-Jets exec. Tier 4 is explained this way, “Tier 4 are the steady QBs, a team knows what they are getting out of these starters every week and are winners. They’re typically smart with the football but tend to lack consistency. They’re elevated by the talent around them, and show that when that talent is average, they can be as well.”
The other Tier 4 passers? Mac Jones from the New England Patriots and Ryan Tannehill of the Tennesee Titans. Tannebaum believes Jones, Tannehill, and Cousins are bedfellows, seemingly interchangeable performers with an offense.
Curiously, Derek Carr inhabits Tier 3 with Kyler Murray from the Arizona Cardinals. And that’s a bit odd. Why? Well, the knock on Cousins is the aforementioned 59-59-2 record. Carr, on the other hand, is immune to QB-record criticism — especially in Tannebaum’s rankings — showcasing a career win-loss of 57-70 (.448).
Moreover, Cousins’ numbers — QB wins aside — routinely outshine Carr’s. It’s rather elementary.
These are the raw numbers in the last four seasons:
Derek Carr vs. Kirk Cousins,
Since 2018:
Carr —
65 Starts
17,010 Passing Yards
96 TDs
41 INTs
Cousins —
63 Starts
16,387 Passing Yards
128 TDs
36 INTs
Cousins has thrown 32 more touchdowns and five fewer interceptions — while starting two games less than Carr.
Not sold on passing touchdowns and interceptions as the Holy Grail of adjudicating passers? Fantastic. Let’s examine 2021 performance via five statistical metrics:
Kirk Cousins,
2021 Year-End Rankings:
4th in Passer Rating
6th in PFF
7th in DVOA
14th in EPA+CPOE
15th in QBR
And for Carr, via the same metrics:
Derek Carr,
2021 Year-End Rankings:
8th in DVOA
13th in PFF
14th in Passer Rating
14th in QBR
15th in EPA+CPOE
Averaging all five metrics for Cousins, the total is 9.2 — or a rationale nomination for Cousins as the 9th or 10th-best quarterback in 2021. Carr’s merger of all five metrics equates to 12.8 — or a reasonable estimation as the NFL’s 12th or 13th-best passer last year.
Therefore, Tannebaum’s tiering system disregards “quarterback record” altogether pertaining to Cousins and Carr. Then, it essentially reverses the placement of tiers, according to 2021 statistics, as Carr lives in a category above Cousins.
Tannebaum described his Tier 3 setup, where Carr sits, like this, “Tier 3 to me are the passers that have potential to play at a high level every week but are not consistent throughout this season. This can be due to injury, or poor performance. They will win you games in the clutch during the season, but they can also lose games for teams at times as well. At their very best, they are Tier 2 players, but all together, are above average QBs.”
Seeding Carr above Cousins must come down to an eye test or generalized favoritism, as mathematics doesn’t substantiate the case.
Quarterbacks deemed better than Cousins and Carr? Josh Allen, Tom Brady, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford, Deshaun Watson, and Russell Wilson.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sally from Minneapolis. His Viking fandom dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).
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