Most of the talking points surrounding Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins are false or exaggerated.
Had Minnesota Vikings loyalists or management been informed three or four years ago that the team would acquire a player a quarterback with a 103.2 passer rating, most would have thought, “Sweet, they traded for Deshaun Watson.” Of course, Watson is the signal-caller in Houston and the Vikings employ Kirk Cousins. But that is Cousins’ passer rating since joining the Vikings — 103.2.
Evidently, that is not good enough for the masses. Excuse after excuse, objection after objection is raised to question the legitimacy of Minnesota’s quarterback. It’s a daunting task to toss out a compliment pertaining to Cousins without detractors floating a “yeah, but” or “he isn’t Patrick Mahomes.” It’s particularly bizarre because the sports body politic doesn’t do that for Matthew Stafford, Kyler Murray, or Ryan Tannehill types.
Cousins hold the NFL’s sixth-best passer rating of all-time. Of the names ahead of him and those immediately below him, he is the only man that is beset by a make-believe asterisk. Although, Tony Romo, too, encountered his fair share of criticism, and he sits at No. 8 on the all-time passer rating list.
For Cousins, though, pundits and fans question if he is even good at all. Nevermind a top 10 passer in the league – some individuals do not view Cousins as remotely good. Let’s have a glance and the wildest myths surrounding the Vikings signal-caller.
Cousins isn’t clutch
Many of these narratives will be silly if you adhere to rational thought and reason.
This is the first one. “Kirk Cousins doesn’t lead a team back during the 4th quarter.” We, at The Viking Age, point-blank ask you: Did you watch the playoff football game in New Orleans last January? Cousins engineered an overtime drive that was a keynote moment in Vikings history. He delivered a missile to Adam Thielen, which set up a walk-off touchdown pass from Cousins to tight end Kyle Rudolph. If you’re the naysayer reading this — does this not count?
In the fourth quarter and overtime periods of games in 2020, Cousins boasts a passer rating of 116.5 when the score margin is within eight points. That nominates him as the NFL’s fourth-best quarterback in this metric.
Cousins’ passing efficiency actually improves when the game is on the line. His overall passer rating in 2020 is 103.9. In the final quarter during tight games, it climbs to 116.5. If anything, Cousins gets better when the stakes are highest. How’s that for myth-busting?
Cousins does his heavy lifting in garbage time
This myth started in Washington where Kirk Cousins was the signal-caller from 2015 to 2017. Because the Football Team’s roster was deficient in talent, Washington was frequently playing from behind. Instead of fighting back to even the score in games, Cousins probably should have refused to go onto the field, right? That would have been tasty for the optics.
No, Cousins battled back in those contests — no matter the score. It’s what athletes do. Refer back to the stat about Cousins’ performance in crunch time to debunk the “only good when the opposition plays prevent defense.”
Also, Cousins has thrown 10 touchdown passes since 2018 when the Vikings are beyond a 17+ point margin in the fourth quarters of games. In the same timeframe, Matt Ryan has thrown 16 such scores. Jared Goff has also thrown 10 such touchdowns.
Are Matt Ryan and Jared Goff garbage time savants? They would need to own this title if this is the standard we apply to Kirk Cousins.
Cousins makes too much money
For better or worse, NFL quarterbacks make gobs of money. They are considered the standard-bearer of each team. The accountability, glory, and blame are propelled in the direction of the signal-caller. It wasn’t always this way. When Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl in 2000, the general population understood that football was a team game and that a quarterback was one player out of 53.
Not anymore. We perceive quarterbacks as ground-strokers at Wimbledon pitted against one another. Mahomes vs. Rodgers. Watson vs. Tannehill. You know the drill.
Because of this mentality, quarterbacks earn the biggest paychecks, for the most part. Per average annual salary, Kirk Cousins is the league’s seventh-highest paid quarterback, effectively “tied” with Carson Wentz (whose contract extension has not kicked in yet). Cousins became purple and gold in 2018. Since that moment, Cousins’ passer rating ranks sixth in the business (103.2). That means that the NFL’s sixth highest-rated passer earns the seventh-most amount of dollars. Equal pay for equal work, eh?
Cousins is a game manager
“Game Manager” is not an incessantly persistent term associated with Kirk Cousins style, but in the shadows, it is often theorized that “game manager” is all he needs to be. Vikings fans know the textbook game manager types – Brad Johnson and Matt Cassel reasonably fit the title.
Cousins is not that. He’s never been a game manager. He’s the only player in the NFL to throw 25+ touchdown passes in each of the last six seasons. Game managers don’t throw north of 25 paydirts annually. It’s preposterous to float this title. Indeed, there are times that Dalvin Cook is hot, and Cousins hands him the ball because of that momentum. But who the hell wouldn’t? If a football team is gashing another via rush, it is foolhardy to start flinging the ball.
The Vikings have tallied five wins in six weeks because of Kirk Cousins, not in spite of his performance. He was the league’s top quarterback in the month of November statistically. It just so happened that his teammate, Cook, was remarkable, too. Cook took home Player of the Month honors.
Cousins is only good because of the weapons around him
Dalvin Cook, Adam Thielen, Justin Jefferson, and others within the Vikings offense are wonderful football players. All professional quarterbacks would benefit with this stable of talent at their disposal.
Yet, two things can be true. Those offensive weapons are upper-echelon. The quarterback is, as well. Cook, Thielen, and Jefferson are not solely superstars because Kirk Cousins is the man throwing the ball. Cousins is not a productive quarterback merely because Cook, Thielen, and Jefferson “make him look good.” The merger of these men is a marriage of resources, not an “if this, then that” system.
Cousins put up stratospheric numbers with limited weapons while in Washington. For instance, in 2017, he passed for 4,093 yards. His pass-catchers included Jamison Crowder, Vernon Davis, Josh Doctson, Terrelle Pryor, Jordan Reed, Kapri Bibbs, Ryan Grant, and Chris Thompson. Does that assembly of men scream Pro Bowl to you?
The 32-year-old Cousins will “get his” no matter the caliber of weapons. It’s just enhanced when superstar talent surrounds him.
Vikings QB legends fared much better than Cousins
This one is especially comical.
Kirk Cousins is pegged as a mediocre quarterback or an “8-8 guy.” He has started 100 career starts at the quarterback position as of Week 13 in 2020. His quarterback record is 50-48-2 (.510). If you believe a quarterback’s record is an individual stat, all the power to you. It’s a strange one because 52 players comprise a football team, but we assign one player (1.9% of the team) a “record.”
In any event, Cousins is frequently compared to Vikings passers of yesteryear. Through 100 career starts, Fran Tarkenton’s quarterback record was 40-56-4 (.420). In Daunte Culpepper’s first 100 starts, his team was 41-59 (.410). Therefore, if we use the quarterback record as a metric, well, Cousins is far outpacing Tarkenton and Culpepper.
This is the spot that the quarterback-record people generally assert that the Vikings, as a whole, were not very good when Tarkenton was young. Boom, quarterback record is no longer a fair metric.
Cousins is a dink-and-dunk quarterback
The granddaddy of them all. This is the one.
When Kirk Cousins is pointed out as an astute, top-12 or so signal-caller, the resistance is often “he dink and dunks his way down the field,” or “he doesn’t launch it.” For followers of Cousins’ career, this sparks Twilight Zone-like emotions.
Deep passing is one of Cousins’ strongest skill sets. In the last four years, Cousins leads the NFL in completions of 25 yards or more (171 such completions). Tom Brady is the next-closest man to Cousins in this metric with 165. A player cannot humanly lead the league in a deep-ball passing parameter such as this – only to be panned as a small-ball or dink-and-dunk thrower of the football. It egregiously disregards common sense. A player can utilize checkdown valves but still heave the ball with success. In fact, good quarterbacks can handle both assignments.
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Cousins also leads the NFL in 50+ yard touchdown passes since the start of 2019. He has six such touchdowns. Not bad for a dink-and-dunker.