Vikings QB Kellen Mond test positive for COVID; three QBs including Kirk Cousins expected to miss practice

[Frozen Rope]

Cousins missed on a few opportunities, but for the most part he played the way he always plays. He is pure money on 3rd-and-5-or-less, much less effective on 3rd-and-5-or-more, shows little anticipation, hesitates to throw down the field unless he's in "hype" mode which he can go into for stretches and where he is very effective throwing deeper routes, and generally displays a "play-not-to-lose" conservative attitude rather than a "show-me-you-can-stop-me" attitude.

At this point in his career, none of that is going to change.

Cousins isn't objectively good or bad in terms of outcome. I still believe a team can win with a QB like Cousins, even win it all. But if a team is going to win, much less win it all, that team has to be much better than the team that currently surrounds Cousins.

This is a good way to put it. And here is where you have to wonder what is going on with management/coaching. How is it you have Kirk Cousins and don't realize that to get to the things he does well, you need to have a top tier OL? If Kirk is your guy, build around him. He's not going to throw to guys UNTIL they are open. He's not going to step up in the pocket or keep his composure under pressure. NEVER GONNA HAPPEN. It's not who he is. He's probably not the best guy to build around given his shortcoming are profound, but you've got to make your team match with the reality your QB is presenting, or move on to another QB. It's some kind of insanity to keep re-signing the guy and surrounding him with weapons he can't make use of on way too high a percentage of downs.

You made some good points. Let me expand on a couple of things.

Top 5 PFF grade offense (min 15 snaps)
1. Cousins 80.9
2. Jefferson 67.3
3. Thielen 66.7
4. Ham 65.8
5. Osborn 63.0

Bottom 3
3. Hill 49.7
2. Conklin 46.6
1. Bradbury 37.7

A couple of comments:
1. Kirk could audible in Washington. Zimmer has a choke hold on every coach here. No audibles. Look at all the turnover in the coaching staff. It’s a fricking carousel of ineptitude and fear which stops at Zimmers door. He could care less whether we have a horrible O line. It never gets fixed and never will as long as he is here. I reserve comment on Spielman.

2. We should have won the game yesterday even with all the penalties. Kirk drove them downfield and another 1st down we could have kicked a field goal and won. Cook fumbles and it’s Kirk’s fault. Zimmer throws him under the bus at halftime. Even Daryl Johnson said “he can’t throw if their not open”
Several replays show no one was open on the plays they showed. You want to know why he can’t step up in the pocket. That pocket is collapsing around him on almost every play. One time yesterday he had a lot of time. Equally concerning is the awful run blocking for Cook. The run game is in shambles. Good luck next week against the Cards.

3. In his presser today, Zimmer said a couple of guys played well, Thielen being one of them. To omit your QB who was your highest rated player is not only unconscionable, but speaks volumes about how he really feels about Cousins. Oh, btw, the Defense isn’t all that good either. I can only hope we get demolished because it will hasten Zimmer getting fired. Whether Cousins stays or leaves, I don’t really care. It’s just gotten really personal for me with Zimmer.

You Cousin haters can take your shots. He’s fair game. But I know coaching and how to motivate. We play old school football and the game has passed him by. Get him out of here. It’s going to get worse, much worse.

[Pondering Her Percy]

This is a good way to put it. And here is where you have to wonder what is going on with management/coaching. How is it you have Kirk Cousins and don't realize that to get to the things he does well, you need to have a top tier OL? If Kirk is your guy, build around him. He's not going to throw to guys UNTIL they are open. He's not going to step up in the pocket or keep his composure under pressure. NEVER GONNA HAPPEN. It's not who he is. He's probably not the best guy to build around given his shortcoming are profound, but you've got to make your team match with the reality your QB is presenting, or move on to another QB. It's some kind of insanity to keep re-signing the guy and surrounding him with weapons he can't make use of on way too high a percentage of downs.

You made some good points. Let me expand on a couple of things.

Top 5 PFF grade offense (min 15 snaps)
1. Cousins 80.9
2. Jefferson 67.3
3. Thielen 66.7
4. Ham 65.8
5. Osborn 63.0

Bottom 3
3. Hill 49.7
2. Conklin 46.6
1. Bradbury 37.7

A couple of comments:
1. Kirk could audible in Washington. Zimmer has a choke hold on every coach here. No audibles. Look at all the turnover in the coaching staff. It’s a fricking carousel of ineptitude and fear which stops at Zimmers door. He could care less whether we have a horrible O line. It never gets fixed and never will as long as he is here. I reserve comment on Spielman.

2. We should have won the game yesterday even with all the penalties. Kirk drove them downfield and another 1st down we could have kicked a field goal and won. Cook fumbles and it’s Kirk’s fault. Zimmer throws him under the bus at halftime. Even Daryl Johnson said “he can’t throw if their not open”
Several replays show no one was open on the plays they showed. You want to know why he can’t step up in the pocket. That pocket is collapsing around him on almost every play. One time yesterday he had a lot of time. Equally concerning is the awful run blocking for Cook. The run game is in shambles. Good luck next week against the Cards.

3. In his presser today, Zimmer said a couple of guys played well, Thielen being one of them. To omit your QB who was your highest rated player is not only unconscionable, but speaks volumes about how he really feels about Cousins. Oh, btw, the Defense isn’t all that good either. I can only hope we get demolished because it will hasten Zimmer getting fired. Whether Cousins stays or leaves, I don’t really care. It’s just gotten really personal for me with Zimmer.

You Cousin haters can take your shots. He’s fair game. But I know coaching and how to motivate. We play old school football and the game has passed him by. Get him out of here. It’s going to get worse, much worse.

Excellent post. I also saw cousins PFF grade. I said to a buddy today, I swear it’s like a black cloud over this teams head. The cousins haters love to say “he can’t lead a game winning drive blah blah”. Well of course this time he led TWO game winning drives when the ball is in his court and one led to the game tying field goal and one was where cook fumbled.

Cousins does what he’s suppose to do and then others crap the bed. Was cousins a little shaky early on? Yeah but after he got in a rhythm he was just fine. He was exactly why we came back when the defense started to crap. The haters can’t use the “cook carried the team” argument because that sure didn’t happen.

In regards to the pocket collapsing, yeah Bradburys lack of strength is continuing to kill us. They didn’t change their philosophy of what style lineman they are looking for until this year. It was always the “let’s get the athlete up front that can get to the second level”. Now they finally strayed towards the “let’s get some guys with strength and an anchor up front” which I’ve been saying they need for years. They even admitted thats what they did. But here we are with darrisaw hurt and Davis on the bench.

Either way, this philosophy and style comes from zimmer. That “toe the line” mentality of his. That stubbornness. That conservative “im still living in 1980” mentality. Zimmer has been a problem for a while now and I’ve been saying this for a few seasons. He hit his peak with the number 1 defense in the nfl in 2017 but since, his defenses have crapped. This defense will be better but im still worried about our DBs. But at this point, if he can’t put a top tier defense out there anymore, what’s the point of keeping him around. He has and is continuing to hold this team back. There is so much talent on both sides of the ball and his mentality and own ways are getting in the way of this team improving.

Im just so done with him at this point. He literally wants zero involvement with the offense. He’d rather have a teddy bridgewater back that can’t throw the ball and forces them to run all the time. He’s completely content with winning games 3-0.

Also a side note, it seems like we’re going under center much more again. This does not help cousins at all and doesn’t play to his strengths. Sure the play action aspect some but that can also happen out of the gun. When cousins has to take a 7 step drop from under center more often than not when you have a center that couldn’t bench press 100 pounds, it’s not good

I’ve always said, the worst spot to get pressure from when you have a pure pocket passing QB is right up the middle because their pocket is now gone when your center gets driven back. I’m telling you right now, if Garrett Bradbury was Tom Brady’s center, Tom Brady would be screwed. Royally screwed. I don’t care who the QB is, if they throw from the pocket consistently, they are in trouble when you have an interior that has no anchor.

What I would’ve done if this was my team, was move Cleveland to LT way back when darrisaw was out and get Davis in at left guard. That gets Jill the hell out of there. They have given Cleveland zero shot at tackle and that’s what he’s played his entire life. They didn’t put him here last year because they had Reiff and they didn’t bother moving him this year becuase they drafted darrisaw. It’s literally the same exact thing as them putting Brian O’Neill at guard. Never would they have done that and he fell into his spot at RT. Cleveland didn’t have that opportunity becuase they weren’t benching Reiff and took darrisaw to take over at LT the following year. Wyatt Davis had a solid preseason and should be in at guard. He’s a TRUE guard. Instead we have two tackles playing guard in Udoh and Cleveland and they get tossed around because they are athletes that are long and use to playing on the edge

I’ve preached this for a while now and looks like I’ll continue to preach the same this season. There’s nothing we can do about Bradbury right now becuase we have no other options but the rest of this line can change and they will never, ever consider it.

Either way, sorry about the long rant but this is on zim. LARGELY on Zim

[S197]

Seems pretty close to universal that people here feel Zimmer should go. Like him as a DC, as a HC, not so much. The question that's more polarizing is whether that's enough. What about Spielman? If Darrisaw and Davis don't pan out, it's going to be real hard not to hold him accountable. He spent the better part of the decade neglecting the line but now it's even worse, he's actually trying to fix it and still can't make it work. Six draft picks in the first three rounds. And another 3 in the 4th. That is a LOT of draft capital to be thrown at a problem that's still a problem.

And it's getting more apparent that Zimmer didn't want Cousins, so that fat extension is likely Spielman as well. Combine that with some other pretty big 1st round flops (Treadwell, Hughes, Bradbury, Gladney)... I don't know that he can afford to miss on Darrisaw. Especially with a guy like Slater (who I think they should have more aggressively tried to trade up for) who looked downright incredible against a top tier Washington defense.

As for those holding out hope for Davis, this is what I saw that worried the hell out of me. Davis is the RG, #51. Watch him on 1st and 2nd down. I don't see an anchor at all, I see Bradbury 2.0. One-on-one bull rushed five yards off the LOS.

https://youtu.be/pRFu7avbDQ8?t=179

Not that you should judge a rookie based on their first snaps in preseason but after watching Bradbury, Elflein, Cleveland, Samia, etc. it doesn't exactly instill a lot of confidence.

[CharVike]

I think we as fans overthink this too much. As long as our o-line continues to be awful, a guy like Kirk isn't good enough. If Kirk played for the Cowboys he'd likely look better than he does with us. If we had Mahomes, he'd likely be able to mask our abysmal line play. As it stands, we have an immobile qb behind an atrocious offensive line; thus both are going to look terrible.

Not a fun spot to be.

Mahomes is the best young QB in the game. At this stage he looks to be a HOF guy. But he wouldn't be able to mask this OL. If he could do that there team would have drafted a couple guys and inserted them. They inserted two top flight OL players this year instead. OL is an important piece and the Chief teams knows this.

[CharVike]

Seems pretty close to universal that people here feel Zimmer should go. Like him as a DC, as a HC, not so much. The question that's more polarizing is whether that's enough. What about Spielman? If Darrisaw and Davis don't pan out, it's going to be real hard not to hold him accountable. He spent the better part of the decade neglecting the line but now it's even worse, he's actually trying to fix it and still can't make it work. Six draft picks in the first three rounds. And another 3 in the 4th. That is a LOT of draft capital to be thrown at a problem that's still a problem.

And it's getting more apparent that Zimmer didn't want Cousins, so that fat extension is likely Spielman as well. Combine that with some other pretty big 1st round flops (Treadwell, Hughes, Bradbury, Gladney)... I don't know that he can afford to miss on Darrisaw. Especially with a guy like Slater (who I think they should have more aggressively tried to trade up for) who looked downright incredible against a top tier Washington defense.

As for those holding out hope for Davis, this is what I saw that worried the hell out of me. Davis is the RG, #51. Watch him on 1st and 2nd down. I don't see an anchor at all, I see Bradbury 2.0. One-on-one bull rushed five yards off the LOS.

https://youtu.be/pRFu7avbDQ8?t=179

Not that you should judge a rookie based on their first snaps in preseason but after watching Bradbury, Elflein, Cleveland, Samia, etc. it doesn't exactly instill a lot of confidence.

They both need to go. I said during the draft we needed to trade up for the top LT. LT fly off the board early if they are great prospects. Our guy Kali was no 4 and came in and played at a high level right off the bat. Of course something happened to him. Speilman traded away from the talent to collect nothing. He wasted a 2nd rounder on nothing and felt he needed some picks. The Jets ripped him off. I don't care about some draft value chart. Forget that. The Jets needed the guy they picked badly make them pay. He could have ripped Bill B and told him you give us some picks our Jones is our pocket. The Pats needed a QB because they had nothing. They were desperate and a guy with talent fell. That's when you can make a deal. Davis will need to sit a few years before he is ready to challenge. It's a big jump from college to pro. Cleveland is a guy they screwed. The kid has talent and was a T his entire life. They move him to a new position and expect him to play right now. That's desperation. The kid will probably be a bust G. He's was a 22 year old kid and his dream came true so he made the switch. He should have told them to stick it. He's still in the process of remaking his body to play inside. That takes years to accomplish. Everyone knew we had crap on the OL.

[CharVike]

You made some good points. Let me expand on a couple of things.

Top 5 PFF grade offense (min 15 snaps)
1. Cousins 80.9
2. Jefferson 67.3
3. Thielen 66.7
4. Ham 65.8
5. Osborn 63.0

Bottom 3
3. Hill 49.7
2. Conklin 46.6
1. Bradbury 37.7

A couple of comments:
1. Kirk could audible in Washington. Zimmer has a choke hold on every coach here. No audibles. Look at all the turnover in the coaching staff. It’s a fricking carousel of ineptitude and fear which stops at Zimmers door. He could care less whether we have a horrible O line. It never gets fixed and never will as long as he is here. I reserve comment on Spielman.

2. We should have won the game yesterday even with all the penalties. Kirk drove them downfield and another 1st down we could have kicked a field goal and won. Cook fumbles and it’s Kirk’s fault. Zimmer throws him under the bus at halftime. Even Daryl Johnson said “he can’t throw if their not open”
Several replays show no one was open on the plays they showed. You want to know why he can’t step up in the pocket. That pocket is collapsing around him on almost every play. One time yesterday he had a lot of time. Equally concerning is the awful run blocking for Cook. The run game is in shambles. Good luck next week against the Cards.

3. In his presser today, Zimmer said a couple of guys played well, Thielen being one of them. To omit your QB who was your highest rated player is not only unconscionable, but speaks volumes about how he really feels about Cousins. Oh, btw, the Defense isn’t all that good either. I can only hope we get demolished because it will hasten Zimmer getting fired. Whether Cousins stays or leaves, I don’t really care. It’s just gotten really personal for me with Zimmer.

You Cousin haters can take your shots. He’s fair game. But I know coaching and how to motivate. We play old school football and the game has passed him by. Get him out of here. It’s going to get worse, much worse.

Excellent post. I also saw cousins PFF grade. I said to a buddy today, I swear it’s like a black cloud over this teams head. The cousins haters love to say “he can’t lead a game winning drive blah blah”. Well of course this time he led TWO game winning drives when the ball is in his court and one led to the game tying field goal and one was where cook fumbled.

Cousins does what he’s suppose to do and then others crap the bed. Was cousins a little shaky early on? Yeah but after he got in a rhythm he was just fine. He was exactly why we came back when the defense started to crap. The haters can’t use the “cook carried the team” argument because that sure didn’t happen.

In regards to the pocket collapsing, yeah Bradburys lack of strength is continuing to kill us. They didn’t change their philosophy of what style lineman they are looking for until this year. It was always the “let’s get the athlete up front that can get to the second level”. Now they finally strayed towards the “let’s get some guys with strength and an anchor up front” which I’ve been saying they need for years. They even admitted thats what they did. But here we are with darrisaw hurt and Davis on the bench.

Either way, this philosophy and style comes from zimmer. That “toe the line” mentality of his. That stubbornness. That conservative “im still living in 1980” mentality. Zimmer has been a problem for a while now and I’ve been saying this for a few seasons. He hit his peak with the number 1 defense in the nfl in 2017 but since, his defenses have crapped. This defense will be better but im still worried about our DBs. But at this point, if he can’t put a top tier defense out there anymore, what’s the point of keeping him around. He has and is continuing to hold this team back. There is so much talent on both sides of the ball and his mentality and own ways are getting in the way of this team improving.

Im just so done with him at this point. He literally wants zero involvement with the offense. He’d rather have a teddy bridgewater back that can’t throw the ball and forces them to run all the time. He’s completely content with winning games 3-0.

Also a side note, it seems like we’re going under center much more again. This does not help cousins at all and doesn’t play to his strengths. Sure the play action aspect some but that can also happen out of the gun. When cousins has to take a 7 step drop from under center more often than not when you have a center that couldn’t bench press 100 pounds, it’s not good

I’ve always said, the worst spot to get pressure from when you have a pure pocket passing QB is right up the middle because their pocket is now gone when your center gets driven back. I’m telling you right now, if Garrett Bradbury was Tom Brady’s center, Tom Brady would be screwed. Royally screwed. I don’t care who the QB is, if they throw from the pocket consistently, they are in trouble when you have an interior that has no anchor.

What I would’ve done if this was my team, was move Cleveland to LT way back when darrisaw was out and get Davis in at left guard. That gets Jill the hell out of there. They have given Cleveland zero shot at tackle and that’s what he’s played his entire life. They didn’t put him here last year because they had Reiff and they didn’t bother moving him this year becuase they drafted darrisaw. It’s literally the same exact thing as them putting Brian O’Neill at guard. Never would they have done that and he fell into his spot at RT. Cleveland didn’t have that opportunity becuase they weren’t benching Reiff and took darrisaw to take over at LT the following year. Wyatt Davis had a solid preseason and should be in at guard. He’s a TRUE guard. Instead we have two tackles playing guard in Udoh and Cleveland and they get tossed around because they are athletes that are long and use to playing on the edge

I’ve preached this for a while now and looks like I’ll continue to preach the same this season. There’s nothing we can do about Bradbury right now becuase we have no other options but the rest of this line can change and they will never, ever consider it.

Either way, sorry about the long rant but this is on zim. LARGELY on Zim

This was a nice string here. You guys all did a great job. Thanks. The best part was about Bradbury and Brady. Brady picked that Buc team because they had the right pieces in place for him including a pro bowl center. Meanwhile we have some stiff who shouldn't be on a roster starting.

[StumpHunter]

I think we as fans overthink this too much. As long as our o-line continues to be awful, a guy like Kirk isn't good enough. If Kirk played for the Cowboys he'd likely look better than he does with us. If we had Mahomes, he'd likely be able to mask our abysmal line play. As it stands, we have an immobile qb behind an atrocious offensive line; thus both are going to look terrible.

Not a fun spot to be.

Mahomes is the best young QB in the game. At this stage he looks to be a HOF guy. But he wouldn't be able to mask this OL. If he could do that there team would have drafted a couple guys and inserted them. They inserted two top flight OL players this year instead. OL is an important piece and the Chief teams knows this.

His Oline gave up pressure on 41% of Mahomes' dropbacks this Sunday. 11% more than the Vikings' Oline.

[StumpHunter]

Excellent post. I also saw cousins PFF grade. I said to a buddy today, I swear it’s like a black cloud over this teams head. The cousins haters love to say “he can’t lead a game winning drive blah blah”. Well of course this time he led TWO game winning drives when the ball is in his court and one led to the game tying field goal and one was where cook fumbled.

Cousins does what he’s suppose to do and then others crap the bed. Was cousins a little shaky early on? Yeah but after he got in a rhythm he was just fine. He was exactly why we came back when the defense started to crap. The haters can’t use the “cook carried the team” argument because that sure didn’t happen.

I have come to the conclusion that the issue isn't haters it is the people who claim things like Cousins lead two game winning drives, neither of which won the game.

[CharVike]

How many QBs are there that can elevate the play of his players. Cousins never was that. It's not like he took the Skins to the playoffs every year and marched them to the champ game. The Lions are paying a guy as much as Cousins and I don't think he can elevate that team to the playoffs. He has a great W/L lifetime record because he played on a very good team. Wentz is paid like him. Will he elevate the Colts? They are already a playoff team. Dak is paid more will his team challenge for the Super Bowl? It's only one game but from what I saw the two areas that Speilman focused on to fix didn't do much either. This secondary is a sive. The kid Burrow carved them alive. Completed 75% and averaged over 9 yards an attempt. He was under big time pressure and did this. Burrow will get knocked out eventually playing behind that line. Speilman fixed the OL. Zimmer even said he wasn't concerned. Cook averaged 3 yards a pop against that team. Our fixed OL sucked. Cousins did his usual. We had 7 1st half points. That don't cut it. Cousins isn't going to improve to a HOF level player. What's the next step? Speilman has nothing behind him. He's been here for years now and has nothing at the QB behind his FA signing. He might have no choice but to extend Cousins. That's a bad GM in action.

I think the proper question should be, how many QB's that will make $45 million can elevate the play of his teammates. I'm not sure why you think Goff and Wentz are making as much as Cousins because they're not. Goff is making about $30 million a year with his last two years having no guaranteed salary. They can walk away with minimal cap hit (his signing bonus, $10M & $5M hits). Wentz won't even make $30 million and also has zero guaranteed salary his last two years. They can also cut him with no cap hit. Kirk Cousins banked $45 million guaranteed BEFORE this season even started for NEXT year. The contracts are nowhere near comparable. Not to mention, this is an extension coming off an unprecedented fully guaranteed, no trade, 3-year double dip contract.

I think Dak is the guy you can draw comparisons and I think Dak is a much better QB. Just look at how he played against that Tampa Defense. He's decisive with his throws and it's not like he had all day to throw the ball. There was a lot of pressure on him, often times a rusher coming clean off the edge. He was able to engineer a late 4th quarter comeback against one of the best defenses in the league. We're not talking about the Bengals defense here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzj9sVTVjnU

Not all QB's need to bring the same thing to a team. But you have to bring something extra, you can't be a guy who throws a nice ball when you have a clean pocket and five seconds to throw. That doesn't happen often in the NFL. You need to be able to feel the pocket, or make plays with your legs, or be the field general. Cousins is never going to be a mobile QB but that means he needs to take command of the field. Gronk was talking about the Dallas game and how Brady checked him into a run block, then checked again into a block and release. On the same play. The guy sees everything. Peyton Manning, same thing. You don't have to be a Pat Mahomes or Russell Wilson style QB but for $45 million you have to bring a lot more than what he brings. The best audible of the night goes to Burrow on 4th down to win the game. I honestly can't even remember Cousins calling an audible. Can you? I recall one play where the Bengals were showing pressure in the A-gap and it looked like he made some sort of protection change. Pressure came up the middle and he took the sack.

Like I said, I don't think Cousins lost us the game and the OL really let him down. But I don't think he did anything particularly special to win it either. And that's sort've par for the course with him. He has a handful of games he plays really well, a handful he plays very poorly and most where he's lukewarm. That's the definition of average and we're paying a lot of money for lukewarm.

QBs with the highest average annual salary
Patrick Mahomes — $45 million per season
Josh Allen — $43 million per season
Dak Prescott — $40 million per season
Deshaun Watson — $39 million per season
Russell Wilson — $35 million per season
Aaron Rodgers, Jared Goff — $33.5 million per season
Kirk Cousins — $33 million per season
Carson Wentz — $32 million per season
Matt Ryan — $30 million per season
That's what I based my salary stuff on. You and me both know this can change at the drop of a hat. Perhaps this info here is way off. The bottom line non rookie starting QBs aren't cheap. When you have nothing and use FA like us a team will need to overpay.
I knock Dak and perhaps unfairly because I hate that team. IMO the media builds them up for more than what they are. Yes they will win that division. Look at that POS. It's a cake walk. You claiming Dak is better than Cousins I won't argue that. You could be right. I do know this I think Dak plays behind an OL that is very good. Cousins has a line that's worthless. Starters that couldn't even make another teams roster. It don't get much worse than that. So I do think Dak has an advantage there. Dak did play the Bucs tough. He has talent around him also and he takes advantage of that.

[CharVike]

Mahomes is the best young QB in the game. At this stage he looks to be a HOF guy. But he wouldn't be able to mask this OL. If he could do that there team would have drafted a couple guys and inserted them. They inserted two top flight OL players this year instead. OL is an important piece and the Chief teams knows this.

His Oline gave up pressure on 41% of Mahomes' dropbacks this Sunday. 11% more than the Vikings' Oline.

All right his OL sucks. They signed the best G in football and acquired a top T but ours is better. Whatever you think.

[CharVike]

His Oline gave up pressure on 41% of Mahomes' dropbacks this Sunday. 11% more than the Vikings' Oline.

All right his OL sucks. They signed the best G in football and acquired a top T but ours is better. Whatever you think.

Also you keep comparing Cousins to the best in the game. Compare him to the Lions guy. That's at least fair. I already know Mahomes is far superior as is Wilson, Brady, Rodgers ext.... How did Wentz do this week?

[StumpHunter]

His Oline gave up pressure on 41% of Mahomes' dropbacks this Sunday. 11% more than the Vikings' Oline.

All right his OL sucks. They signed the best G in football and acquired a top T but ours is better. Whatever you think.

I posted a fact about the pressure rates Sunday. Could you try to respond to what was actually written and not what you made up in your head?

[StumpHunter]

All right his OL sucks. They signed the best G in football and acquired a top T but ours is better. Whatever you think.

Also you keep comparing Cousins to the best in the game. Compare him to the Lions guy. That's at least fair. I already know Mahomes is far superior as is Wilson, Brady, Rodgers ext.... How did Wentz do this week?

Again, Wentz and Goff were traded because they weren't good enough, but both those guys lost, just like Cousins.

Wilson was pressured at an even higher rate than Mahomes was and had a great day.

Tyrod Taylor was pressured at an even higher rate than Wilson and had a great day on a team trying to lose.

[StumpHunter]

I think the proper question should be, how many QB's that will make $45 million can elevate the play of his teammates. I'm not sure why you think Goff and Wentz are making as much as Cousins because they're not. Goff is making about $30 million a year with his last two years having no guaranteed salary. They can walk away with minimal cap hit (his signing bonus, $10M & $5M hits). Wentz won't even make $30 million and also has zero guaranteed salary his last two years. They can also cut him with no cap hit. Kirk Cousins banked $45 million guaranteed BEFORE this season even started for NEXT year. The contracts are nowhere near comparable. Not to mention, this is an extension coming off an unprecedented fully guaranteed, no trade, 3-year double dip contract.

I think Dak is the guy you can draw comparisons and I think Dak is a much better QB. Just look at how he played against that Tampa Defense. He's decisive with his throws and it's not like he had all day to throw the ball. There was a lot of pressure on him, often times a rusher coming clean off the edge. He was able to engineer a late 4th quarter comeback against one of the best defenses in the league. We're not talking about the Bengals defense here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzj9sVTVjnU

Not all QB's need to bring the same thing to a team. But you have to bring something extra, you can't be a guy who throws a nice ball when you have a clean pocket and five seconds to throw. That doesn't happen often in the NFL. You need to be able to feel the pocket, or make plays with your legs, or be the field general. Cousins is never going to be a mobile QB but that means he needs to take command of the field. Gronk was talking about the Dallas game and how Brady checked him into a run block, then checked again into a block and release. On the same play. The guy sees everything. Peyton Manning, same thing. You don't have to be a Pat Mahomes or Russell Wilson style QB but for $45 million you have to bring a lot more than what he brings. The best audible of the night goes to Burrow on 4th down to win the game. I honestly can't even remember Cousins calling an audible. Can you? I recall one play where the Bengals were showing pressure in the A-gap and it looked like he made some sort of protection change. Pressure came up the middle and he took the sack.

Like I said, I don't think Cousins lost us the game and the OL really let him down. But I don't think he did anything particularly special to win it either. And that's sort've par for the course with him. He has a handful of games he plays really well, a handful he plays very poorly and most where he's lukewarm. That's the definition of average and we're paying a lot of money for lukewarm.

QBs with the highest average annual salary
Patrick Mahomes — $45 million per season
Josh Allen — $43 million per season
Dak Prescott — $40 million per season
Deshaun Watson — $39 million per season
Russell Wilson — $35 million per season
Aaron Rodgers, Jared Goff — $33.5 million per season
Kirk Cousins — $33 million per season
Carson Wentz — $32 million per season
Matt Ryan — $30 million per season
That's what I based my salary stuff on. You and me both know this can change at the drop of a hat. Perhaps this info here is way off. The bottom line non rookie starting QBs aren't cheap. When you have nothing and use FA like us a team will need to overpay.
I knock Dak and perhaps unfairly because I hate that team. IMO the media builds them up for more than what they are. Yes they will win that division. Look at that POS. It's a cake walk. You claiming Dak is better than Cousins I won't argue that. You could be right. I do know this I think Dak plays behind an OL that is very good. Cousins has a line that's worthless. Starters that couldn't even make another teams roster. It don't get much worse than that. So I do think Dak has an advantage there. Dak did play the Bucs tough. He has talent around him also and he takes advantage of that.

Mahomes, Allen, and Prescott will make the bulk of their contract in years Cousins isn't currently under contract and when the the salary cap is considerably higher. Comparing his 33 million per year to theirs is comparing apples to oranges and none of those three will ever make more than Cousins while he is a Viking (fingers crossed Spielman doesn't give him a 90 million guaranteed contract extension this coming offseason).

In the years Cousins has been under contract, he will make 30 million a year, just 500K less than Wilson and 500K more than Rodgers. All fully guaranteed which makes his contract significantly better than either Rodgers' or Wilson's.

[fiestavike]

You made some good points. Let me expand on a couple of things.

Top 5 PFF grade offense (min 15 snaps)
1. Cousins 80.9
2. Jefferson 67.3
3. Thielen 66.7
4. Ham 65.8
5. Osborn 63.0

Bottom 3
3. Hill 49.7
2. Conklin 46.6
1. Bradbury 37.7

A couple of comments:
1. Kirk could audible in Washington. Zimmer has a choke hold on every coach here. No audibles. Look at all the turnover in the coaching staff. It’s a fricking carousel of ineptitude and fear which stops at Zimmers door. He could care less whether we have a horrible O line. It never gets fixed and never will as long as he is here. I reserve comment on Spielman.

2. We should have won the game yesterday even with all the penalties. Kirk drove them downfield and another 1st down we could have kicked a field goal and won. Cook fumbles and it’s Kirk’s fault. Zimmer throws him under the bus at halftime. Even Daryl Johnson said “he can’t throw if their not open”
Several replays show no one was open on the plays they showed. You want to know why he can’t step up in the pocket. That pocket is collapsing around him on almost every play. One time yesterday he had a lot of time. Equally concerning is the awful run blocking for Cook. The run game is in shambles. Good luck next week against the Cards.

3. In his presser today, Zimmer said a couple of guys played well, Thielen being one of them. To omit your QB who was your highest rated player is not only unconscionable, but speaks volumes about how he really feels about Cousins. Oh, btw, the Defense isn’t all that good either. I can only hope we get demolished because it will hasten Zimmer getting fired. Whether Cousins stays or leaves, I don’t really care. It’s just gotten really personal for me with Zimmer.

You Cousin haters can take your shots. He’s fair game. But I know coaching and how to motivate. We play old school football and the game has passed him by. Get him out of here. It’s going to get worse, much worse.

Excellent post. I also saw cousins PFF grade. I said to a buddy today, I swear it’s like a black cloud over this teams head. The cousins haters love to say “he can’t lead a game winning drive blah blah”. Well of course this time he led TWO game winning drives when the ball is in his court and one led to the game tying field goal and one was where cook fumbled.

Cousins does what he’s suppose to do and then others crap the bed. Was cousins a little shaky early on? Yeah but after he got in a rhythm he was just fine. He was exactly why we came back when the defense started to crap. The haters can’t use the “cook carried the team” argument because that sure didn’t happen.

In regards to the pocket collapsing, yeah Bradburys lack of strength is continuing to kill us. They didn’t change their philosophy of what style lineman they are looking for until this year. It was always the “let’s get the athlete up front that can get to the second level”. Now they finally strayed towards the “let’s get some guys with strength and an anchor up front” which I’ve been saying they need for years. They even admitted thats what they did. But here we are with darrisaw hurt and Davis on the bench.

Either way, this philosophy and style comes from zimmer. That “toe the line” mentality of his. That stubbornness. That conservative “im still living in 1980” mentality. Zimmer has been a problem for a while now and I’ve been saying this for a few seasons. He hit his peak with the number 1 defense in the nfl in 2017 but since, his defenses have crapped. This defense will be better but im still worried about our DBs. But at this point, if he can’t put a top tier defense out there anymore, what’s the point of keeping him around. He has and is continuing to hold this team back. There is so much talent on both sides of the ball and his mentality and own ways are getting in the way of this team improving.

Im just so done with him at this point. He literally wants zero involvement with the offense. He’d rather have a teddy bridgewater back that can’t throw the ball and forces them to run all the time. He’s completely content with winning games 3-0.

Also a side note, it seems like we’re going under center much more again. This does not help cousins at all and doesn’t play to his strengths. Sure the play action aspect some but that can also happen out of the gun. When cousins has to take a 7 step drop from under center more often than not when you have a center that couldn’t bench press 100 pounds, it’s not good

I’ve always said, the worst spot to get pressure from when you have a pure pocket passing QB is right up the middle because their pocket is now gone when your center gets driven back. I’m telling you right now, if Garrett Bradbury was Tom Brady’s center, Tom Brady would be screwed. Royally screwed. I don’t care who the QB is, if they throw from the pocket consistently, they are in trouble when you have an interior that has no anchor.

What I would’ve done if this was my team, was move Cleveland to LT way back when darrisaw was out and get Davis in at left guard. That gets Jill the hell out of there. They have given Cleveland zero shot at tackle and that’s what he’s played his entire life. They didn’t put him here last year because they had Reiff and they didn’t bother moving him this year becuase they drafted darrisaw. It’s literally the same exact thing as them putting Brian O’Neill at guard. Never would they have done that and he fell into his spot at RT. Cleveland didn’t have that opportunity becuase they weren’t benching Reiff and took darrisaw to take over at LT the following year. Wyatt Davis had a solid preseason and should be in at guard. He’s a TRUE guard. Instead we have two tackles playing guard in Udoh and Cleveland and they get tossed around because they are athletes that are long and use to playing on the edge

I’ve preached this for a while now and looks like I’ll continue to preach the same this season. There’s nothing we can do about Bradbury right now becuase we have no other options but the rest of this line can change and they will never, ever consider it.

Either way, sorry about the long rant but this is on zim. LARGELY on Zim

It's just the nature of the game today. I don't know how to numerically quantify it, but the QB is so far and away the most important player on any team, and has such a disproportionate impact on the outcome of games. If you lack a QB who is 'elite enough', its going to be tough to win often enough to get anywhere.

At this point, there is plenty of blame for the management/coaching combo not seeming to be on the same page, for Zimmer himself, etc. All true. The thing is, Kirk still isn't good enough to give his team a legitimate chance at winning enough plays to win enough games to win important game, to win the big game. If he has the skill set to overcome 2, 3, 4, of the negative plays, the vikings win this game, and many other games.

He is the variable that has most power to transcend the limitations around him, because he is the guy with the ball in his hands, but he lacks the ability to transcend them.