Cousins is actually better under the bright lights

[RandyMoss84]

The arguments about Cousins is getting old

[S197]

This neglects the impact of the salary cap. Resources, in this case money, is limited and when you invest so much in one player that by definition means less to put on everyone else. So you can’t have the perfect OL, great defense and all the other tools Cousins needs to succeed. In short, like you said Cousins isn’t a guy that elevates the play of those around him and that’s what you need to do with a contract of his size.

I don’t mind Rick grabbing Cousins and taking a shot but I do disagree with the extension when he’s clearly not the guy that is putting this team over the top. Not to mention Ricks drafting strategy that regardless of draft position he continues to neglect the QB position. 15 draft picks and still waiting until the 7th round really emphasizes this. And it’s not just this year, we have over a decade of drafts with the exact same strategy.

I call BS on his not elevating the play of others. What a load of crap. He plays excellent QB for us and his passes being where the receivers can catch them elevates their play. He's clearly a guy that can put us over the top.

You’re entitled to your own opinion but from what I’ve seen, the running game elevated Cousins, not the other way around. When defenses shut down the running game, he was completely ineffective. He’s a QB that’s good at managing mistakes as the PFF article points out but he’s not a guy that’s going to put a team on his back and carry them when others are struggling. He needs everything to be clicking to be at his best and he rattles easily.

Look at this play: https://twitter.com/sagerosenfels18/sta ... 73441?s=21

Clean pocket. Receiver wide open in his field of vision. And he checks down. In a championship game. And there’s 7 more examples from that same game of similar mistakes. Cousins record in big games isn’t because of bad luck or faulty statistics, he simply lacks the poise needed in those situations and the tape doesn’t lie.

If he said, you know what I’ve made my money, next contract I’ll take less so they can build up the team around me. Then he’s worth keeping around. But not on these high guarantee, short term contracts where he can continually dip back into the well. He’s not good enough to be that guy. He’s like Matt Stafford, a better than average QB that bleeds his team contract after contract hindering them from making the next level.

Tom Brady is a special player but he’s also smart and knows what it takes to win. He’s never the top paid QB despite the obvious body of work that supports it. Why? Because he gets it.

The 41-year-old QB added he's happy to take a pay cut if it means more to spend on quality talent.

"Actually, it's a salary cap," Brady said. "You can only spend so much and the more that one guy gets is less for others. And for a competitive advantage standpoint, I like to get a lot of good players around me."

[VikingsVictorious]

I call BS on his not elevating the play of others. What a load of crap. He plays excellent QB for us and his passes being where the receivers can catch them elevates their play. He's clearly a guy that can put us over the top.

You’re entitled to your own opinion but from what I’ve seen, the running game elevated Cousins, not the other way around. When defenses shut down the running game, he was completely ineffective. He’s a QB that’s good at managing mistakes as the PFF article points out but he’s not a guy that’s going to put a team on his back and carry them when others are struggling. He needs everything to be clicking to be at his best and he rattles easily.

Look at this play: https://twitter.com/sagerosenfels18/sta ... 73441?s=21

Clean pocket. Receiver wide open in his field of vision. And he checks down. In a championship game. And there’s 7 more examples from that same game of similar mistakes. Cousins record in big games isn’t because of bad luck or faulty statistics, he simply lacks the poise needed in those situations and the tape doesn’t lie.

If he said, you know what I’ve made my money, next contract I’ll take less so they can build up the team around me. Then he’s worth keeping around. But not on these high guarantee, short term contracts where he can continually dip back into the well. He’s not good enough to be that guy. He’s like Matt Stafford, a better than average QB that bleeds his team contract after contract hindering them from making the next level.

Tom Brady is a special player but he’s also smart and knows what it takes to win. He’s never the top paid QB despite the obvious body of work that supports it. Why? Because he gets it.

The 41-year-old QB added he's happy to take a pay cut if it means more to spend on quality talent.

"Actually, it's a salary cap," Brady said. "You can only spend so much and the more that one guy gets is less for others. And for a competitive advantage standpoint, I like to get a lot of good players around me."

On virtually every play you can see the QB missing the best target. Every one of them. Your link means absolutely nothing, but you have your right to be wrong.

[Pondering Her Percy]

The last guy we drafted mid-round was John David Booty well over a decade ago. Are you saying we haven’t had an opportunity to draft anyone since then? And it’s all the more ironic considering we’re giving a 4th round pick who was taken to be a backup a mega contract. I’m pretty sure we would’ve done better with Dak Prescott or Jacoby Brissett than Willie Beavers. That’s purely hindsight driven, I’ll admit that, but it shows why you need to take those chances. Because sometimes you do find a Prescott, Wilson, Cousins, etc. in the mid rounds. Even if the hit rate is low, the importance of the position is so high it’s simply a risk you need to take once in a while.

I think Eason has a pretty good shot. Hurts went early otherwise he would be a contender. At the very least he can play a Taysom Hill type of role for a team.

You miss 100% of the shots you never take. Rick doesn’t take shots. Forget about this year, you can look over his entire career here and the narrative fits.

This is a pretty good analysis. If I were in charge I may have taken the best QB available with the pick we used on Wonnum. Was Eason or Fromm still available.

Eason was not but Fromm was

[S197]

Eason was available had we not traded back.

[S197]

On virtually every play you can see the QB missing the best target. Every one of them. Your link means absolutely nothing, but you have your right to be wrong.

I’ll take your two low effort responses as enough to say agree to disagree and move on.

[VikingsVictorious]

On virtually every play you can see the QB missing the best target. Every one of them. Your link means absolutely nothing, but you have your right to be wrong.

I’ll take your two low effort responses as enough to say agree to disagree and move on.

My point was with the advantage of looking everything over on film you can almost always find a more open or open deeper or something like that. It's not quite so easy when you are the QB on the field trying to make the perfect read. None of them consistently make the best read. Not even Brady. So I had a problem with you showing some film and saying see!!! Cousins made the wrong read. However, on that play I will grant you that he should have made the better read. It still doesn't mean much.

[StumpHunter]

I’ll take your two low effort responses as enough to say agree to disagree and move on.

My point was with the advantage of looking everything over on film you can almost always find a more open or open deeper or something like that. It's not quite so easy when you are the QB on the field trying to make the perfect read. None of them consistently make the best read. Not even Brady. So I had a problem with you showing some film and saying see!!! Cousins made the wrong read. However, on that play I will grant you that he should have made the better read. It still doesn't mean much.

Why do you think this? The biggest difference between a starting QB and a backup is that starters do make the best read consistently, while a backup cannot. In fact, when you see a backup play well for a few games and then start to struggle, it is because the OC had limited the reads to simple ones that backup could make consistently, and eventually defenses got film on the QB and took those easy reads away. Starters on the other hand, have a larger number of reads they make well, so it is much harder for defenses to adjust.

If you were to compare a QB to a pitcher in baseball, the number of good reads a QB can make would be similar to how much "stuff" a pitcher can throw. A backup QB is similar to a relief pitcher, with only a couple of good pitches that can get batters out. A starter of Cousins caliber is like a good #3 starting pitcher. He has enough to work through the lesser batting orders effectively, he has 5 pitches he throws well, but the good batting lineups eat him up because he just doesn't have enough juice or movement to really beat them.

[VikingsVictorious]

My point was with the advantage of looking everything over on film you can almost always find a more open or open deeper or something like that. It's not quite so easy when you are the QB on the field trying to make the perfect read. None of them consistently make the best read. Not even Brady. So I had a problem with you showing some film and saying see!!! Cousins made the wrong read. However, on that play I will grant you that he should have made the better read. It still doesn't mean much.

Why do you think this? The biggest difference between a starting QB and a backup is that starters do make the best read consistently, while a backup cannot. In fact, when you see a backup play well for a few games and then start to struggle, it is because the OC had limited the reads to simple ones that backup could make consistently, and eventually defenses got film on the QB and took those easy reads away. Starters on the other hand, have a larger number of reads they make well, so it is much harder for defenses to adjust.

If you were to compare a QB to a pitcher in baseball, the number of good reads a QB can make would be similar to how much "stuff" a pitcher can throw. A backup QB is similar to a relief pitcher, with only a couple of good pitches that can get batters out. A starter of Cousins caliber is like a good #3 starting pitcher. He has enough to work through the lesser batting orders effectively, he has 5 pitches he throws well, but the good batting lineups eat him up because he just doesn't have enough juice or movement to really beat them.

I really shouldn't be feeding you, but here goes. No QB ever consistently has the best read. Not one. That is something so difficult about the position. The best QBs maybe make the best read let's say 50% of the time. The lesser QBs are making the best read 20-30% of the time. My point was that you can go to film of any QB and find them missing the best reads on most of the plays. That is why I don't care about a film clip showing Cousins making a poor read on a particular play. It's meaningless. Now if you want go review the film of every play by every qb in the NFL over the last 5 years and chart how many times they make the BEST read possible. Then chart how many times the play was successful. Then compare Cousins chart to every other QB in the NFL of how often the play turns out successful. That is how you could come up with a something meaningful. Showing one play where he misses a read is completely and utterly pointless. I prefer to just use the QB efficiency rankings for that and Cousins rates very well in those. As for your RIDICULOUS #3 starter analogy stuff it.
There are 32 teams in the NFL and Cousins without question to anybody who takes an objective look at it is top 10 and possibly top 5. That makes him a #1 starter. I should have known better than reading a post of yours where Cousins was involved. Back to full ignore.

[VikingsVictorious]

A little bit of Cousins stuff for last season. I found this while reading comments on the 2019-20 Vikings highlight video on YouTube.
I haven't confirmed the accuracy, but as of now I'm presuming it's all correct.

Heavy Metal Rules
1 month ago
@B F hi kid guess what
Cousins has been the best deep ball thrower the past FOUR YEARS and I can prove it.

Completions of 30 or more yards the past four years:
1: Kirk Cousins: 95
2: Russell Wilson: 91
3: Matt Ryan: 89
4: Philip Rivers: 87
5: Tom Brady: 83

Oh guess what, he won the playoff game against the saints, the NFC's best team.
He made a 20+ point comeback against the Broncos
He won in Primetime Against the cowboys at their stadium.
He had a Passer Rating of 107.4
Completion percentage of 69.1
Guess who didn't have either of those ratings or percentage. Yep. Rodgers didn't. If Cousins isn't our future QB, I don't know who is

Regarding best deep ball thrower I would like to know how many Mahomes had over the last two. I'm guessing if you double that he would probably have more. I confirmed the 107.4 passer rating and 69.1% completions which were both good for 4th best on the season. Not a perfect stat as Tannehill was #1, but Tannehill did have a great year. Brees was second Jackson was third.
Cousins was 24th in pass attempts, but 8th in TD passes. I love that one. 6th highest % of passes going for TDs.
1.4% of his passes were intercepted. 23 starting QBs had higher % ints.
7th best YPA in the league. All those numbers are flat out excellent.
Here's a link to the passer rating and all the other stuff I was talking about.
https://www.footballdb.com/stats/stats. ... t=passrate

[StumpHunter]

Why do you think this? The biggest difference between a starting QB and a backup is that starters do make the best read consistently, while a backup cannot. In fact, when you see a backup play well for a few games and then start to struggle, it is because the OC had limited the reads to simple ones that backup could make consistently, and eventually defenses got film on the QB and took those easy reads away. Starters on the other hand, have a larger number of reads they make well, so it is much harder for defenses to adjust.

If you were to compare a QB to a pitcher in baseball, the number of good reads a QB can make would be similar to how much "stuff" a pitcher can throw. A backup QB is similar to a relief pitcher, with only a couple of good pitches that can get batters out. A starter of Cousins caliber is like a good #3 starting pitcher. He has enough to work through the lesser batting orders effectively, he has 5 pitches he throws well, but the good batting lineups eat him up because he just doesn't have enough juice or movement to really beat them.

I really shouldn't be feeding you, but here goes. No QB ever consistently has the best read. Not one. That is something so difficult about the position. The best QBs maybe make the best read let's say 50% of the time. The lesser QBs are making the best read 20-30% of the time. My point was that you can go to film of any QB and find them missing the best reads on most of the plays. That is why I don't care about a film clip showing Cousins making a poor read on a particular play. It's meaningless. Now if you want go review the film of every play by every qb in the NFL over the last 5 years and chart how many times they make the BEST read possible. Then chart how many times the play was successful. Then compare Cousins chart to every other QB in the NFL of how often the play turns out successful. That is how you could come up with a something meaningful. Showing one play where he misses a read is completely and utterly pointless. I prefer to just use the QB efficiency rankings for that and Cousins rates very well in those. As for your RIDICULOUS #3 starter analogy stuff it.
There are 32 teams in the NFL and Cousins without question to anybody who takes an objective look at it is top 10 and possibly top 5. That makes him a #1 starter. I should have known better than reading a post of yours where Cousins was involved. Back to full ignore.

Your point is that Tom Brady doesn't consistently make the right read, and that we could look at the film and find better options than the one he took on more than half his plays? That is...an interesting take.

Personally, I think even QBs like Cousins make the best read most of the time. That is just me.

[StumpHunter]

A little bit of Cousins stuff for last season. I found this while reading comments on the 2019-20 Vikings highlight video on YouTube.
I haven't confirmed the accuracy, but as of now I'm presuming it's all correct.

Heavy Metal Rules
1 month ago
@B F hi kid guess what
Cousins has been the best deep ball thrower the past FOUR YEARS and I can prove it.

Completions of 30 or more yards the past four years:
1: Kirk Cousins: 95
2: Russell Wilson: 91
3: Matt Ryan: 89
4: Philip Rivers: 87
5: Tom Brady: 83

Cousins was a average to bad deep ball passer until he came to the Vikings. I can prove it:

https://brickwallblitz.com/2016/06/09/t ... 5-part-13/ Grade: D-
https://brickwallblitz.com/2017/03/26/t ... roject-13/ Grade: C
https://brickwallblitz.com/2018/03/28/t ... l-project/ Ranking(he switched to ranks after this year): 30th
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat- ... ll-project Ranking: 14th
https://brickwallblitz.com/2020/02/21/t ... -part-2-3/ Ranking: 11th

Your stat isn't actually 30+ yard throws btw. It includes all passes where the receiver picked up 30 yards or more, which includes passes behind the line of scrimmage all the way to 60 yard bombs. So misleading, and that guy should be embarrassed for tweeting it.

Oh guess what, he won the playoff game against the saints, the NFC's best team.
He made a 20+ point comeback against the Broncos
He won in Primetime Against the cowboys at their stadium.
He had a Passer Rating of 107.4
Completion percentage of 69.1
Guess who didn't have either of those ratings or percentage. Yep. Rodgers didn't. If Cousins isn't our future QB, I don't know who is

Regarding best deep ball thrower I would like to know how many Mahomes had over the last two. I'm guessing if you double that he would probably have more. I confirmed the 107.4 passer rating and 69.1% completions which were both good for 4th best on the season. Not a perfect stat as Tannehill was #1, but Tannehill did have a great year. Brees was second Jackson was third.
Cousins was 24th in pass attempts, but 8th in TD passes. I love that one. 6th highest % of passes going for TDs.
1.4% of his passes were intercepted. 23 starting QBs had higher % ints.
7th best YPA in the league. All those numbers are flat out excellent.
Here's a link to the passer rating and all the other stuff I was talking about.
https://www.footballdb.com/stats/stats. ... t=passrate

Regarding Mahomes, he did indeed double Cousins' deep ball completions in 2018, with 34 completions to Cousins 17 over 20 yards. In 2019, despite playing in one less game than Cousins, he completed 35 compared to Cousins 25. Or did you mean the other way around? 69 completions for Mahomes versus 42 for Cousins.

Outside of that, Cousins did have his most efficient season. He was a great game manager last year.

[Fat Stupid Loser]

Why do you think this? The biggest difference between a starting QB and a backup is that starters do make the best read consistently, while a backup cannot. In fact, when you see a backup play well for a few games and then start to struggle, it is because the OC had limited the reads to simple ones that backup could make consistently, and eventually defenses got film on the QB and took those easy reads away. Starters on the other hand, have a larger number of reads they make well, so it is much harder for defenses to adjust.

If you were to compare a QB to a pitcher in baseball, the number of good reads a QB can make would be similar to how much "stuff" a pitcher can throw. A backup QB is similar to a relief pitcher, with only a couple of good pitches that can get batters out. A starter of Cousins caliber is like a good #3 starting pitcher. He has enough to work through the lesser batting orders effectively, he has 5 pitches he throws well, but the good batting lineups eat him up because he just doesn't have enough juice or movement to really beat them.

I really shouldn't be feeding you, but here goes.

[VikingLord]

This neglects the impact of the salary cap. Resources, in this case money, is limited and when you invest so much in one player that by definition means less to put on everyone else. So you can’t have the perfect OL, great defense and all the other tools Cousins needs to succeed. In short, like you said Cousins isn’t a guy that elevates the play of those around him and that’s what you need to do with a contract of his size.

I don’t mind Rick grabbing Cousins and taking a shot but I do disagree with the extension when he’s clearly not the guy that is putting this team over the top. Not to mention Ricks drafting strategy that regardless of draft position he continues to neglect the QB position. 15 draft picks and still waiting until the 7th round really emphasizes this. And it’s not just this year, we have over a decade of drafts with the exact same strategy.

That's a fair point and something I didn't consider. If you overpay at one position on offense (or defense), that money has to be taken away from other positions since there is a hard salary cap, and that does make it more difficult to field better overall units elsewhere. Not impossible, but more difficult.

Some of this goes back to the overall QB market, though. Cousins doesn't set the market. He is part of a larger pool of players available at his position, and if the drop off from a player like him to the next best available is large enough, then it might be a "damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't" situation for Spielman. Sure, he could not extend Cousins and let him walk for another QB who will take less money, and while that might create more cap space to improve other positions on the offense, the decline at the QB position might more than offset whatever is gained elsewhere because the QB position is such a high profile and critical position in the scheme of the offense. Maybe in this QB market that is Spielman's conclusion.

Your points about failing to draft are also valid, but I still think the draft can't be forced. While Spielman could take more chances at the position in the draft, that doesn't mean he'd end up in any better position than he's in unless he got lucky like the Seahawks did with Wilson. Further, I don't think Spielman has neglected the QB position. Maybe he hasn't taken shots at it in the draft, but he's made sometimes very aggressive moves to shore it up, using a combination of trades and free agency. We can disagree on the ultimate wisdom of the moves he's made and there is a lot to criticize in hindsight, but I don't think Spielman can be credibly accused of ignoring the position.

[VikingLord]

I am glad you brought this up. The Vikings aren't worried about the Oline and didn't feel it was that bad last year. So while you don't think any QB could have done better behind that line, they go into the off season, cut a RG, but pretty much stand pat on the Oline otherwise. I don't see any way Cleveland starts this year, and I think there is a good chance the line is Reiff, Elf, Bradbury, Samia/whoever wins that competition, and O'Neil.

I feel the same way about the Oline as I do the QB. It is fine against lesser competition, but struggles against the better teams. The Vikings feel that is good enough for both the QB and Oline, because that is good enough to win enough games for management to keep their jobs. I am not okay with it because it isn't good enough to win the SB.

I agree with you that the Vikings weren't as worried about the offensive line, and I think they made an invalid calculation at the start of last season that explains why.

I think heading into last season Zimmer and Spielman both expected the defense to be much better. It was a veteran group that had finished top 5 the year before IIRC. I think they knew the offense had some question marks and might struggle at times, but they expected the defense that they really stretched cap-wise to ensure the offense didn't need to be a juggernaut. Clearly, that didn't happen as the defense struggled to stop both the run and pass. They were good at times, but the consistency wasn't there.

Heading into this season I don't know what the calculation is. I don't think either Spielman or Zimmer can make the same assumptions about the defense, so it stands to reason they will have to lean more on the offense, and maybe as with the defense they felt continuity at QB with Cousins was a better bet than shifting gears and trying something else. It will be interesting to see how that turns out, because like you, I don't feel any significant strides were made to improve the offensive line. Cleveland is unlikely to see the field, the jury is still out on Bradbury, and it isn't clear who the Vikings expect to start at either guard position. I've assumed for a while that is because they saw enough from the development of their depth guards that they aren't worried, but that isn't a certainty and could end up being a risky gamble.