Dalvin Cook and Kirk Cousins
When the 2021 NFL season ended, Kirk Cousins was graded by Pro Football Focus as the team’s second-best player. Those scores were either wrong to begin with, or Cousins was surpassed this offseason for an unknown reason.
Per PFF, these were the year-end grades for the Vikings Top 5 players:
Now, though, circumstances are apparently different. PFF ranked every team’s best three performers heading into the 2022 season, and here’s the new thinking:
While most onlookers of the Vikings wouldn’t consider Cousins one of the team’s three best overall players, the grade creator, PFF, advertised as such in January.
End-season grades indeed line up with “the new best” players in Justin Jefferson and Danielle Hunter. And, truth be told, it’s virtually impossible to argue Jefferson and Hunter outside of the Vikings top three.
The “debate” gets spicy with Dalvin Cook, though — if one is to believe PFF‘s metrics, in general.
Cook was classified as the NFL’s 42nd-best running back in 2021, per PFF‘s scoring system. He lived in an area of 2021 virtue somewhere between Alex Collins (Seahawks) and Rex Burkhead (Texans).
The author of the three-best-per-team rankings was Ben Linsey, and he called Cook’s 2021 performance a “grade slide from a career-high 89.0 in 2020 to a career-low 65.8 last season in an injury-marred campaign.”
So, evidently, Cook’s lackluster season — by PFF standards — was attributable to injuries. And, through implication, Cook figures to bounce back ahead of the quarterback’s performance, according to PFF.
Cousins was PFF‘s sixth-best quarterback leaguewide in 2021, so in five months, the NFL’s 42nd-best [and injury-riddled] RB surged back per 2022 projections to oust the league’s sixth-best passer from last season.
That’s quite the accomplishment and forecast for Cook.
Linsey concluded by mentioning that Cousins, Brian O’Neill, Za’Darius Smith, Harrison Smith, and Adam Thielen were all considered for the Top 3 placement.
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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