StumpHunter wrote: ↑Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:15 pm
makila wrote: ↑Mon Oct 04, 2021 4:18 pm
From Purple Daily pod: Zimmer is 17-41 against teams that finish the season with winning record (with them projecting Cards and Browns as winning records at end of season). With Kirk and Zimmer together they are 5-21 against teams that finish with a winning record. Hahahaha thats so bad.
They are pretty negative on both Coaching and Front Office.
Also pointed out, coach that had a worse record than Zimmer against such teams? Jay Gruden. Both from Cincy tree. Both also with Cousins as their QB during much of their HC tenure.
12-20 prior Cousins with Bridgewater, Bradford and Case prior to 2018. Not good but only 3 games going the other way away from .500. Plus, you take out 2014 which was a rebuild year and that number is closer to .500.
5-21 with Cousins is really bad though.
Cousins was 2-10 prior to joining the Vikings.
So Cousins was .167 prior to joining the Vikings against winning teams, and improved to .192. Zimmer was at .375 and fell to .192.
It just hit me very clearly what the difference is in Cousins when he's facing solid pressure early. He just tightens up and gets tunnel vision. Whereas in the first three games he's sitting back there in boss mode, the Browns start to breath down his neck and he totally clamps up. He no longer looks anywhere but his safety valve reads for the most part. He's "twitchy". The play where he started to take off running and cross the LOS before he threw is a good example of that. Either run or throw there. First three games, he stayed cool and calm under pressure and bought himself time. Against the Browns, he looked afraid on pretty much every drop back. Timing is also off. On the deep Thielen route that resulted in the pick he had a small window to hit Thielen, but he held on to it and launched the ball late, allowing the other DB to come over and make that play.
I guess he wasn't terrible against the Browns, but neither did he continue to play at the level he displayed in the first three games. Yeah, the Browns definitely had something to do with that, and most QBs will wilt under pressure, but Cousins just seems to "feel" when his OL isn't going to get it done for him. He can see it when the run game can't move the ball. He is getting guys in his face quickly, including free rushers who are hitting him frequently. He gets jumpy, his confidence vanishes, and he's just looking to get the ball out as quickly and safely as he possibly can, often to well covered receivers because the opposing defense knows that's what he will do in those situations.
If we can safely assume that defenses like the one the Browns possess are the type of defenses that typically make it deeper into the playoffs, then its no wonder why Cousins has not enjoyed any substantial success in the playoffs over his career, and it also explains his poor record against better pass defenses.
Stump already made these points ad nauseum, but this last game compared to his first three games this year was like night and friggin day difference. It really stood out, painfully so.
The really depressing part is, there is zero chance this changes at this point in his career. He's not going to figure out a way to cope with things better under pressure or realize that to have success against high pressure defenses he HAS to find a way to keep his eyes downfield and find the deep guys the defense is literally handing him on a silver platter, because that is what will make the pressure go away. He just can't do it, at least not with the consistency for any defensive coordinator with a decent pass rush to back off for even a minute.