Kyle Shanahan says Cousins and Kubiak will ‘be a good match’

The current San Francisco 49ers head coach commented on the Minnesota Vikings quarterback and new offensive assistant at the NFL Scouting Combine on Wednesday.

After the first half of last season, it was pretty clear that the Minnesota Vikings had made a mistake in hiring John DeFilippo to be their offensive coordinator. Luckily, the Vikings realized this too and they made the decision to show DeFilippo the door last year to prevent the offense from continuing in the wrong direction.

For 2019, Minnesota has gone back to the drawing board and they will enter next season with a brand new group of coaches leading their offense.

The most notable new addition to the Vikings’ coaching staff this offseason has to be former NFL head coach Gary Kubiak. For the past two decades, Kubiak has been regarded as one of the best offensive minds in the league and Minnesota is hoping his expertise will help them turn things around in 2019.

Kevin Stefanski will be the Vikings new offensive coordinator this year, but a bunch of Kubiak’s successful schemes are still expected to be implemented into the team’s offense. There will definitely be more input and differing opinions on Minnesota’s offensive staff for 2019 and the team is just hoping that it doesn’t end up being a case of having too many cooks in the kitchen.

One of the priorities for the Vikings this offseason will be figuring out what to run on offense to bring out the best in quarterback Kirk Cousins.

Statistically, Cousins had a very impressive season in 2018. But Minnesota didn’t end up making the playoffs last year with their new quarterback and some of this had to do with the team relying too much on their passing attack to produce on offense.

With Kubiak now on the Vikings’ staff, the belief is that the team will get back to having a more run-oriented offense that is able to better utilize play-action pass plays. An offense like this is one that Cousins found success with in the past when he was with the Washington Redskins and current San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was his offensive coordinator.

Having worked with both during his coaching career, Shanahan recently commented on how things may work out for Cousins and Kubiak during their first season together in Minnesota.

"“I think the best thing for Kirk is just a full system for him that’s tied together. You know, Kirk, just using the running game, which I know Gary puts a lot into. It just takes the pressure off the quarterback and the offensive line, which I believe you have to do for every single quarterback in the league.I know Kirk is a great quarterback and I’ve got the utmost respect for ‘Koob’, so I think it’ll be a good match.”"

Shanahan is not the first member of his family to comment on how good of a quarterback Cousins is during the past week as his father, Mike, recently offered a similar sentiment about the Vikings’ starting signal-caller.

The belief by those who have worked with him in the past is that Cousins is very good at his job and that he was just used incorrectly last season. It seems like Minnesota realized this too, which is why they have been revamping their offense this year.

So with Stefanski and Kubiak now leading the way, the Vikings are hopeful that they can get the best out of Cousins in 2019 and help the team return to the playoffs.