Familiar faces for Cousins on offense
On the defensive side of the ball, the Vikings experienced a number of changes this offseason. Minnesota’s defense will have at least four new starters and they will be without the trio of Everson Griffen, Xavier Rhodes, and Linval Joseph for the first time since 2013.
On offense, however, the Vikings will be working with a lot of familiar faces and a familiar scheme. The consistency in scheme is something that Minnesota quarterback Kirk Cousins should be excited about.
In each of his last four seasons, Cousins has worked with a different offensive coordinator. While Gary Kubiak will technically be the Vikings new offensive coordinator this year, the team has admitted in the past that they essentially used Kubiak’s scheme to run the offense in 2019.
Continuity is typically a recipe for success in the NFL. Of the 12 teams who made the playoffs last season, seven of them had the same quarterback and offensive coordinator during the previous year (counting Kyle Shanahan as the de facto San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator).
In 2020, Cousins will be running the Kubiak offense for the second-straight season and he’ll get to throw passes to guys he has already built a chemistry with like Dalvin Cook, Adam Thielen, Bisi Johnson, Irv Smith Jr., and Kyle Rudolph.
The last time Minnesota started a year with the same starting quarterback and the same offensive scheme was back in 2015 (Teddy Bridgewater and Norv Turner). It resulted in a playoff berth for the Vikings. Will the same be true for his season’s team?