My Plan to Fix the Vikings

[PurpleMustReign]

So putting aside the QB who is here for at least two more seasons, I think we can all agree that we need two new guards, a replacement for Barr or Richardson, and a 3rd WR who doesn't suck.

A younger, cheaper TE would be good, and we will need a #2 RB (resigning Murray at his age would be a mistake, imo).

They need to figure out what to do at the second safety spot. Sendejo should not be back. He was solid in coverage, but you can't count on him after the injury, and I think he can be upgraded.

Options to address above:

Cut Griffen to re-sign Barr and Richardson. I think they can make it work salary-wise with his 14 million to go along with Sendejo, Remmers and a Rudolph restructure. This does make our pass rush considerably worse. Even at 75% last season, Griffen is a better pass rusher than Weatherly.

We need to hit on at least 4, probably 5 draft picks to get close to being as good as we were in 2017.

That is all I got.

Beebe could possibly get the #3. I think Treadwell will be here next yesr because he's cheap.

[Pondering Her Percy]

I disagree to an extent. GB x 2, Phi, LA, DET x 2, NO he was very accurate. Those were all "big games" in their own way. Saying he threw "a lot" of short passes? I dont fully buy into it. His 20+ yard completions were middle of the pack. His 40+ yard completions were middle of the pack. His YPA was in the bottom half of the league but so were guys like Andrew Luck, Aaron Rodgers, Trubisky, Newton, Foles and Stafford. Do they throw "a lot" of short passes too? Must be. I mean he definitely threw his fair share of check downs for sure. But again, what is that caused by? Do you really think he's missing wide open guys that often? Does he not have the time? Are plays taking too long to develop? There are plenty of reasons that could be behind that. We arent back there making the throws so we cant see anything for the most part.

And a side note, Case Keenum was well below Kirk Cousins in almost every statistical category this year. Guys thought Cousins threw check downs? Keenum was averaging 6.6 YPA this year. Cousins was 7.1. Teddy in 2014 and then 2015? 7.2 and 7.2. Their completion percentages? Nowhere near Cousins. 62% for Case, Teddy was 64% and 65%. Cousins was 70%. But guys are here saying Cousins "isnt accurate" or "throws a lot of short passes"? Not saying you're saying this but just in general, there are the numbers

I'd really like to see Cousins stats on 3rd down and redzone. And to be fair to Keenum and Bridgewater, Cousins was throwing to Diggs and Thielen who are ranked pretty high in contested catches.

Not sure if YPA is an accurate stat for checkdowns unless they are not counting YAC.
As far as Cousins inflating his completion numbers, I'm not going to look at every game. Here's the last four: (pro football reference)
vs SEA 19 of his 20 completions were "complete short to __"
vs MIA, 12 of his 14 completions were "complete short to ____"
vs DET 16 of his 21 completions were "complete short to ____"
vs CHI, 20 of his 20 completions were "complete short to ___"

I think his completion percentage is inflated.

I understand what you're trying to get at but there are a couple reasons that I think those stats are somewhat flawed by using the "last 4 games".

1.) The passing game was drastically toned down towards the end of the year. Cousins was averaging around 44 passes per game before Flip was fired. The last 4 games he averaged 28. No less, Seattle and Chicago were arguably his two worst games of the year. And as for the other 2 games (Mia, Det) he threw under 28 passes or less in those games.

2.) Going off of NFL.com and basing their wording off of his completions is also flawed. It's either considered "short" or "deep". Where is that line crossed? I just looked at Andrew Luck's last 4 games and their wording on it. It was 4-5 "deep" passes or less for him as well based off their wording. And a couple of those games were only 2-3 "deep" completions as well. So does that mean Andrew Lucks completion percentage is inflated too? And he's only at 67.3%. By no means am I comparing Cousins to Luck. But let's think about it too, Luck is a QB that had elite play out of his OL this year as well. Cousins was far from that. No offense but it's kind of a bogus way to determine if his completion percentage is "inflated or not" based off of wording.

I'm not sitting here trying to say Cousins was a gunslinger all year. But if a play is not developed and he has guys in his face early and often like he did, short passes are usually going to be the norm. I wouldnt say that Cousins was ever "shy" to throw deep balls. Look at his numbers in Washington. His YPA was 7.6, 7.7 and 8.1. His final two years in Washington, he was 5th and 2nd in the NFL in 20+ yard passes. And in 2016 he was 3rd in 40+ yard passes. The guy isnt a game managing, check down QB. He never has been. Did he throw more this year than usual? Yeah. That is why I believe it was more scheme based than anything and second, the amount of pressures his OL gave up.

This is similar to the whole Case and Kirk comparison. Many fans are in love with the 1 good season Case had (yeah it was awesome) but tend to ignore the 6 horrid horrid or non-existent seasons he had. Fans are overlooking the one good year for all the bad years. But now we're over-analyzing the one "low" YPA season Cousins had vs. his 3 higher ones. I take the bigger sample size any day of the week. If Cousins was USUALLY like this year after year, yeah I wouldnt be arguing it. But I'm just trying to be fair here. Teddy had two 7.2 YPA seasons in a row. In 2014, he was 20th in 20+ yard passes and 18th in 40+. In 2015, he was 23rd in 20+ yard passes and 25th in 40+. But guys wish we still had Teddy? Does this whole "inflated percentage/check-down" argument not apply to him? I feel like I hardly ever saw Teddy stretch the field. A lot less than Cousins thats for sure.

I've seen Kirk Cousins play long enough to know he isnt that Alex Smith type QB. His completion percentage he had this year was the highest of his career so year it could be slightly inflated, but we're just nitpicking at this point. We're trying to find any flaw in his game we can. I've said before, as hard as our fans are on QBs, NEVER have I seen fans all over a QB like Cousins. He's getting it worse than Ponder IMO. Granted it could be because of the "contract" or that we didnt "repeat last year" but again, there is so much more that goes into what went on with this team this year. A lot more than Cousins "inflated completion percentage"

[Pondering Her Percy]

So putting aside the QB who is here for at least two more seasons, I think we can all agree that we need two new guards, a replacement for Barr or Richardson, and a 3rd WR who doesn't suck.

A younger, cheaper TE would be good, and we will need a #2 RB (resigning Murray at his age would be a mistake, imo).

They need to figure out what to do at the second safety spot. Sendejo should not be back. He was solid in coverage, but you can't count on him after the injury, and I think he can be upgraded.

Options to address above:

Cut Griffen to re-sign Barr and Richardson. I think they can make it work salary-wise with his 14 million to go along with Sendejo, Remmers and a Rudolph restructure. This does make our pass rush considerably worse. Even at 75% last season, Griffen is a better pass rusher than Weatherly.

We need to hit on at least 4, probably 5 draft picks to get close to being as good as we were in 2017.

That is all I got.

I'll gladly move away from the Cousins talk. Good distracting post here haha.

-I hope to god Richardson is the one we invest in.
-Definitely need two new guards.
-I really liked what I saw out of Robinson this year but would like him more as a #4.
-I like Conklin. Wouldnt mind seeing us move forward with him. This is a good TE class too.
-If Murray can come cheap, I say still resign him given Cooks injury history
-I'd rather let Barr walk than cut Griff. But Griffs health and contract is definitely concerning
-Harris is an easy replacement for Sendejo
-I did like Weatherly but yeah, he's a good "off the bench DE" but not starting material. If we cut Griff, my guess is, Zimmer goes hard after a pass rusher in the draft which could effect OL. One reason I'd like to keep Griff and assess DE the following year.

This is one year I am stumped with where we will go in the draft. Everything points to OL but then you have the possibility of losing Griff or Barr or Richardson. Which all create good sized holes. Although I think you can replace Barr in later rounds.

I want to get started on one of my mock offseasons soon. It takes a while to type up and get a good feel for players in the draft

[Mothman]

I've seen Kirk Cousins play long enough to know he isnt that Alex Smith type QB. His completion percentage he had this year was the highest of his career so year it could be slightly inflated, but we're just nitpicking at this point. We're trying to find any flaw in his game we can. I've said before, as hard as our fans are on QBs, NEVER have I seen fans all over a QB like Cousins. He's getting it worse than Ponder IMO.

It's not even close, in my opinion. Fans were absolutely brutal to Ponder.

[Mothman]

This may be helpful to the conversation:

ESPN has "splits" for QBs. I don't know how accurate they are but if you scroll down the page at the link below, you can see stats for how many "air yards" a pass was thrown.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/splits/_ ... rk-cousins

According to those stats, Cousins threw 113 passes behind the line of scrimmage and 312 between 1 and 10 yards.

[StumpHunter]

This may be helpful to the conversation:

ESPN has "splits" for QBs. I don't know how accurate they are but if you scroll down the page at the link below, you can see stats for how many "air yards" a pass was thrown.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/splits/_ ... rk-cousins

According to those stats, Cousins threw 113 passes behind the line of scrimmage and 312 between 1 and 10 yards.

It honestly doesn't even matter. Some QBs have a lot of success throwing a lot of short throws, and the deep stuff is more about the personnel surrounding the QB than the QB himself anyway.

All that matters is success. Did the offense score, did they move the ball well, did they keep their defense off the field. How far the ball traveled after leaving the QB's hand isn't nearly as important as any of that.

[Mothman]

It honestly doesn't even matter. Some QBs have a lot of success throwing a lot of short throws, and the deep stuff is more about the personnel surrounding the QB than the QB himself anyway.

Why do you say that? It seems to me the QB has a significant role either way.

All that matters is success. Did the offense score, did they move the ball well, did they keep their defense off the field. How far the ball traveled after leaving the QB's hand isn't nearly as important as any of that.

That's true, it's not, but it matters if the ball isn't traveling as far as it should. In other words, designed short passes are fine, Checkdowns are fine too but the QB should only check it down (or throw it away) if that's the best choice available to him. When it becomes a crutch because a QB is playing overly risk-averse football, that's problematic. Whether Cousins did that or not is probably debatable and that's not a debate I really want to have...

I see the bottom line on Cousins this way: he's one of the more talented QBs we've seen playing for the Vikings over the past 10-15 years. He was clearly chosen over the other options available to the team and given a lucrative, 3 year, fully-guaranteed contract because the team believes he can be a key piece in the championship "puzzle" they're attempting to solve. He played very well at times and statistically, he had a very good season. However stats can be deceptive and in reality, his overall performance was uneven and he needs to play better in big games and key moments. That includes staying sufficiently aggressive with the ball and being a factor that helps the Vikes defeat winning teams (fair or not, that comes with the high-priced QB territory). As you said, the bottom line is success. If the Vikings make the postseason in 2019, they can't afford to have Cousins play like he did against Buffalo, Seattle or Chicago. They need him to play like he did when he brought them from behind @Green Bay and they may need it for 4 quarters.

He has to play better, especially in big games, and they need a stronger "infrastructure" around him to facilitate improvement.

[VikingLord]

When you pay for a guy like Cousins, you expect more out of him. You certainly dont expect to see what I saw in Cousins at the end of this season.

I think Cousins was paid for the position he plays more than what he brings to the position that is special. He's a solid QB who should be able to win with enough support around him. It is true that many QBs probably fall into the same category. I'm not claiming Cousins is super special or possesses some exceptional talent that can overcome deficiencies in his supporting cast. In some ways, he is cursed by the contract he signed - you accept big-time, superstar money, people expect you to play that way. But it's not Cousins' fault he was offered what he was offered, nor can he magically conjour up capabilities he doesn't possess.

Spielman should have known this before he handed out the contract. Cousins' body of work as a pro is well known. He shouldn't have been a gamble, and if they overpaid for the performance they will get, that falls on the GM and coaches who wanted him, not the QB who took the money.

[Pondering Her Percy]

This may be helpful to the conversation:

ESPN has "splits" for QBs. I don't know how accurate they are but if you scroll down the page at the link below, you can see stats for how many "air yards" a pass was thrown.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/splits/_ ... rk-cousins

According to those stats, Cousins threw 113 passes behind the line of scrimmage and 312 between 1 and 10 yards.

Right but finally this is the stat we've all been looking for and this further proves my point that Cousins' completion percentage isnt "inflated because of short passes".

I picked 3 random QBs (Cousins making 4) to compare these numbers to. Kirk Cousins, Pat Mahomes, Andrew Luck and Ben Roethlisberger. Here is how they all stack up:

Behind LOS (comp/att/%)
Cousins- 94-113- 83.2%
Mahomes- 113-127- 89.0%
Luck- 83-104- 79.8%
Ben- 117-137- 85.4%

Between 1-10 yards
Cousins- 226-312- 72.4%
Mahomes- 159-233- 68.2%
Luck- 223-308- 72.4%
Ben- 222-299- 74.2%

Between 11-20 yards
Cousins- 66-98- 67.3%
Mahomes- 67-114- 58.8%
Luck- 69-123- 56.1%
Ben- 60-118- 50.8%

Between 21-30 yards
Cousins- 11-27- 40.7%
Mahomes- 21-47- 44.7%
Luck- 20-47- 42.6%
Ben- 14-38- 36.8%

Between 31-40 yards
Cousins- 3-11- 27.3%
Mahomes- 8-20- 40%
Luck- 4-11- 15.3%
Ben- 6-28- 21.4%

Over 41 yards
Cousins- 4-11- 36.4%
Mahomes- 1-15- 6.7%
Luck- 2-3- 66.7%
Ben- 2-7- 28.6%

-Now after we analyze those stats compared to those 4 QBs, Cousins had the 3rd least attempts, completions and accuracy behind the LOS.
-He then had the most completions and attempts of 1-10 yards but only by a minimal number than the other 3 QBs.
-Where Cousins really takes the cake, is between 11-20 yards. He has around the same number of completions as the other 3 between 11-20 yards but crushes them all accuracy wise. Yes he had less attempts there but not by an overly large amount and completed just as many or more than they did.
-He also had the 2nd most attempts of 41+ yards and the 2nd best accuracy.
-His "weak spot" seemed to be between 21-30 yards. Least amount of attempts and completions and 3rd best accuracy.
-For 31-40 yards and 41+ yards, he was the 2nd most accurate QB of the 4. And their attempts and completions really arent that far off.

Overall, this proves that Kirk Cousins completion percentage was NOT "inflated by short passes". In the end, the guy was simply pretty darn accurate this year. No less I included some of the better QBs in this league to put his numbers up against. Two of them threw for over 5,000 yards on top of it all. By no means am I comparing Kirk Cousins to any of these 3 QBs. But when you want to look at some of the "better QBs" in the league and put Cousins numbers next to theirs, especially something like this, it shows there was really zero "inflation" and the amount of "short passes" he threw, were right on par with the big dogs. Thanks Jim for the link because this paints a much better picture of that argument and doesnt go off of wording on NFL.com.

[Pondering Her Percy]

When you pay for a guy like Cousins, you expect more out of him. You certainly dont expect to see what I saw in Cousins at the end of this season.

I think Cousins was paid for the position he plays more than what he brings to the position that is special. He's a solid QB who should be able to win with enough support around him. It is true that many QBs probably fall into the same category. I'm not claiming Cousins is super special or possesses some exceptional talent that can overcome deficiencies in his supporting cast. In some ways, he is cursed by the contract he signed - you accept big-time, superstar money, people expect you to play that way. But it's not Cousins' fault he was offered what he was offered, nor can he magically conjour up capabilities he doesn't possess.

Spielman should have known this before he handed out the contract. Cousins' body of work as a pro is well known. He shouldn't have been a gamble, and if they overpaid for the performance they will get, that falls on the GM and coaches who wanted him, not the QB who took the money.

Good post. So many fans cant get past the $84 million number. I always say the QB market is all based on leverage. That is the going rate and its only going to increase. Spielman couldnt look at Cousins and say "hey we'll give you $50 million, deal?". If we wanted him, we had to give him what the market shows. There is no other way around it. We didnt get into a bidding war. The jets were ready to give him $6 million more. We arent paying Kirk Cousins $84 million because he's the best QB in football. We're paying him because of the leverage at the position he plays. Wait until Pat Mahomes, Jared Goff, Wentz, Trubisky, etc. contracts are up. There are new "highest paid" players at their position all the time. Does that always mean they are the "best" at their position? No. The QB market is the biggest one of them all.

[VikeFanInEagleLand]

Good posts. I agree with all of that. My criticism with Cousins doesn't lie in the fact that he's making good money. Heck, more of my criticism lies with the Vikings for bringing him here because I feel it wasn't an upgrade over what we already had. Usually, at some points your QB will be put in a situation where he is given the ball with under 2 minutes left and has to orchestrate a game winning drive. Is Cousins that guy? I just happen to not be sold on that. Good tools....yes. Good stats....yes. But a winner? He has to convince me. I still say that if he was the QB in the miracle game last year against New Orleans, he never throws that ball to Diggs. Maybe he would have just dumped another pass off and hoped for a TD run.

[StumpHunter]

This may be helpful to the conversation:

ESPN has "splits" for QBs. I don't know how accurate they are but if you scroll down the page at the link below, you can see stats for how many "air yards" a pass was thrown.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/player/splits/_ ... rk-cousins

According to those stats, Cousins threw 113 passes behind the line of scrimmage and 312 between 1 and 10 yards.

Right but finally this is the stat we've all been looking for and this further proves my point that Cousins' completion percentage isnt "inflated because of short passes".

I picked 3 random QBs (Cousins making 4) to compare these numbers to. Kirk Cousins, Pat Mahomes, Andrew Luck and Ben Roethlisberger. Here is how they all stack up:

Behind LOS (comp/att/%)
Cousins- 94-113- 83.2%
Mahomes- 113-127- 89.0%
Luck- 83-104- 79.8%
Ben- 117-137- 85.4%

Between 1-10 yards
Cousins- 226-312- 72.4%
Mahomes- 159-233- 68.2%
Luck- 223-308- 72.4%
Ben- 222-299- 74.2%

Between 11-20 yards
Cousins- 66-98- 67.3%
Mahomes- 67-114- 58.8%
Luck- 69-123- 56.1%
Ben- 60-118- 50.8%

Between 21-30 yards
Cousins- 11-27- 40.7%
Mahomes- 21-47- 44.7%
Luck- 20-47- 42.6%
Ben- 14-38- 36.8%

Between 31-40 yards
Cousins- 3-11- 27.3%
Mahomes- 8-20- 40%
Luck- 4-11- 15.3%
Ben- 6-28- 21.4%

Over 41 yards
Cousins- 4-11- 36.4%
Mahomes- 1-15- 6.7%
Luck- 2-3- 66.7%
Ben- 2-7- 28.6%

-Now after we analyze those stats compared to those 4 QBs, Cousins had the 3rd least attempts, completions and accuracy behind the LOS.
-He then had the most completions and attempts of 1-10 yards but only by a minimal number than the other 3 QBs.
-Where Cousins really takes the cake, is between 11-20 yards. He has around the same number of completions as the other 3 between 11-20 yards but crushes them all accuracy wise. Yes he had less attempts there but not by an overly large amount and completed just as many or more than they did.
-He also had the 2nd most attempts of 41+ yards and the 2nd best accuracy.
-His "weak spot" seemed to be between 21-30 yards. Least amount of attempts and completions and 3rd best accuracy.
-For 31-40 yards and 41+ yards, he was the 2nd most accurate QB of the 4. And their attempts and completions really arent that far off.

Overall, this proves that Kirk Cousins completion percentage was NOT "inflated by short passes". In the end, the guy was simply pretty darn accurate this year. No less I included some of the better QBs in this league to put his numbers up against. Two of them threw for over 5,000 yards on top of it all. By no means am I comparing Kirk Cousins to any of these 3 QBs. But when you want to look at some of the "better QBs" in the league and put Cousins numbers next to theirs, especially something like this, it shows there was really zero "inflation" and the amount of "short passes" he threw, were right on par with the big dogs. Thanks Jim for the link because this paints a much better picture of that argument and doesnt go off of wording on NFL.com.

The stat we have all been looking for is air yards per completion.

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing/2018/all

Cousins takes extra time in the pocket to complete shorter than average passes. Behind about 20 other starters by my count.

[YikesVikes]

https://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/n ... 39765.html
Any more ownage? It was 7 not 8 but my guy.

They dropped 7 3 times in that game, 6 12 times in some new fangled "dime" defense?, and spent the majority of the game in nickle.

You got me alright. With what, I am not sure, but I have never felt so owned by someone who was wrong in all my life.

Dude, the article points to the fact that they didn't rush their standard 4 down line men. Our 5 olinemen couldn't block them. We couldn't run the ball successfully either. You are wrong. Its the oline.

[YikesVikes]

I've seen Kirk Cousins play long enough to know he isnt that Alex Smith type QB. His completion percentage he had this year was the highest of his career so year it could be slightly inflated, but we're just nitpicking at this point. We're trying to find any flaw in his game we can. I've said before, as hard as our fans are on QBs, NEVER have I seen fans all over a QB like Cousins. He's getting it worse than Ponder IMO.

It's not even close, in my opinion. Fans were absolutely brutal to Ponder.

Ponder was brutal. He was awful.

[VikingPaul73]

my biggest concern with Cousins isn't his contract, his lack of mobility or anything with ANY stat

my concern is that he's a choker. That he folds in prime time games. That he panics under pressure. That he will never come through in the clutch.

Seriously, 1:30 remaining, the Vikings get the ball down 4 at their own 25 in a Playoff game. Be honest......would any of you even have a shred of confidence that Kirk Freaking Cousins would lead us to victory??

I would not.

next 2 years are a total 8-8 waste. then cousins is gone, Zimmer is gone, and hopefully Slicky Ricky is gone. then the rebuild.

So, IF the rebuild goes well, at least 4 years until there is any hope of playoff success. Sad. Bears are the class of the division for the next 3-5 years.