Vikings won’t win a Super Bowl with Kirk Cousins

The Minnesota Vikings have an elite football team, but is quarterback Kirk Cousins the one holding them back from being able to win a Super Bowl?

The Minnesota Vikings find themselves at a strong 2-1 in the early part of the 2019 NFL season. After getting back into the win column in Week 3’s blowout win over the Oakland Raiders, the Vikings seemed to have righted the ship and are charting the course towards Miami for Super Bowl LIV. But will anything end up holding them back from finally hoisting the Lombardi Trophy?

On this week’s episode of Stacking the Box, FanSided‘s Matt Verderame and Josh Hill, along with former NFL offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz discuss what could end up being the Vikings’ Achilles’ heel this season. It’s painfully obvious, as quarterback Kirk Cousins has to play better if Minnesota wants to reach the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1970s.

On the segment “Pass or Run”, Hill asks Schwartz and Verderame if Cousins is the biggest thing holding back the Vikings from winning a Super Bowl. Verderame “has to run with this” (29:10). He highlights the Vikings now having a running game, thanks to Dalvin Cook’s emergence in year three. This is a very good team that needs to get better play out of Cousins in the coming weeks.

“He doesn’t play well against the better teams, which is how I think you should evaluate quarterbacks, so I’m going to run with this,” said Schwartz. He would compare Cousins to a division rival’s quarterback in Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions by stating that both signal-callers have struggled to beat above-.500 teams for much of their NFL careers.

Both Verderame and Schwartz bring up good points. Minnesota finally having a running game should, in theory, make things easier for Cousins. We know he’s an accurate passer, but doesn’t he have enough weapons around him in Cook, Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen to make a big playoff push? And if Minnesota is going to win a Super Bowl, Cousins will have to beat winning teams.

Here are a few other topics discussed on this week’s episode of Stacking the Box:

• The Green Bay Packers are a legit Super Bowl contender (5:03)
• If the Philadelphia Eagles get their act together, they’re Super Bowl favorites (6:00)
• Would you rather have Lamar Jackson or Baker Mayfield (43:04)?
• The Miami Dolphins aren’t going to win a game (45:00)

All this and more!

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