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Kirk Cousins is, by every traditional measure, an excellent QB. So why doesn't he win more?


Apparition

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He has a 98.4 career passer rating, which ranks him ahead of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, and just behind Drew Brees.
His 6.97 career ANY/A is 10th all-time, just behind Russell Wilson, and ahead of Steve Young and Joe Montana.
His TD/INT ratio is better than 2:1.
His sack rate lags somewhat behind the all-time great pocket QBs, but is still significantly better than the likes of Rodgers and Wilson.

But despite all this, he's 1 game below .500 for his career, and just 1-2 as a playoff starter.

Is this all just a function of him being mostly on mediocre teams with mediocre coaching, or is there a problem with Cousins himself? Even comparable players in comparable situations like Philip Rivers and Matt Ryan are significantly above .500 for their careers.

Edited by Apparition
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7 minutes ago, DannyB said:

-He's played his entire career in the full-blown passer-friendly era of the NFL.

Sure, but even adjusting for era, he's consistently produced excellent numbers for the last 7 years.

His Rate+ by season since 2015:
118, 112, 105, 113, 120, 117, 114

Tom Brady's in the same span:
119, 133, 117, 110, 94, 113, 116

  

7 minutes ago, DannyB said:

-Sometimes a quarterback's strengths and deficiencies don't translate cleanly to a stat sheet.

True, but again, in almost all other cases, QB stats of that caliber correlate strongly with wins. 

Edited by Apparition
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Can't really compare modern QB stats with those other guys. Even though Brady is still going he debuted when the leagues average passer rating was 78.5. I view Kirk as a guy who has played with some really talented teammates, who is a good QB, and routinely beats up on bad teams, but rarely steps up in big games, and that's why they don't win that often.

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6 minutes ago, Bullet Club said:

I view Kirk as a guy who has played with some really talented teammates, who is a good QB, and routinely beats up on bad teams, but rarely steps up in big games, and that's why they don't win that often.

This is my take - I wonder what the splits are when looking at teams over .500 vs teams under .500; I have a feeling he's got a lot of great looking stats against Detroit, Washington, NYG and Chicago, but looks worse for wear against Seattle, Green Bay, New Orleans, etc.

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9 minutes ago, ET80 said:

This is my take - I wonder what the splits are when looking at teams over .500 vs teams under .500; I have a feeling he's got a lot of great looking stats against Detroit, Washington, NYG and Chicago, but looks worse for wear against Seattle, Green Bay, New Orleans, etc.

His counting stats against Green Bay are good but he's never actually looked that good against them. Like in his debut he had 400+ yards and 4 TDs, and it didn't seem like he even played well. He threw a terrible redzone int, and he threw another int that was negated by a BS penalty that would've ended the game, and they ended up with a tie.

Edited by Bullet Club
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3 minutes ago, ET80 said:

This is my take - I wonder what the splits are when looking at teams over .500 vs teams under .500; I have a feeling he's got a lot of great looking stats against Detroit, Washington, NYG and Chicago, but looks worse for wear against Seattle, Green Bay, New Orleans, etc.

He's actually done better against the Saints than just about any other opponent. Passer ratings north of 100 in every start, and 12 TD to just 1 INT, but only 1-3 in those games. 
Mostly great numbers against the Packers, except for the two starts in 2019. Decent against Seattle. Excellent against the Cowboys. The teams he's actually struggled against the most have been the Falcons and Giants. 

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4 minutes ago, Apparition said:

He's actually done better against the Saints than just about any other opponent. Passer ratings north of 100 in every start, and 12 TD to just 1 INT, but only 1-3 in those games. 
Mostly great numbers against the Packers, except for the two starts in 2019. Decent against Seattle. Excellent against the Cowboys. The teams he's actually struggled against the most have been the Falcons and Giants. 

Well... that ruins my theory.

I sincerely don't know, I've always heard the narrative that he doesn't show up when the stakes are highest.

Guess that isn't the case.

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2015: won the NFC East
2016: Dak/Zeke won the NFC East with hyper efficiency
2017: Eagles won the SB
2018: Bears defense was pretty great, came in second
2019: Took out the Saints in OT in wildcard, knocked out by the 49ers who went to the SB on the back of the defense
2020: Vikings defense fell off a cliff

Edited by Trojan
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His numbers in crunch time since joining Vikings look to be pretty average. 32 QBs have attempted 100+ passes in 4th/OT of 1 score games since 2018. His passer rating of 95.2 is 16th out of those 32. The Vikings offense gets 1st downs on 33.5% of pass plays in such situations, good for 15th.
 

Even more damning, Vikings score on just 24.1% of their 4th quarter or OT drives in 1 score games. That is 2nd worst in the league since 2018. Of course that’s not all Kirk, we all know about their luck with kickers and that includes RB/WRs fumbling, but certainly even when accounting for that it’d still be a bottom half number.

 

 

 

He’s just a complete average QB in my eyes, who due to good situations has at times put up very good stats.

Edited by RandyMossIsBoss
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30 minutes ago, Trojan said:

2015: won the NFC East
2016: Dak/Zeke won the NFC East with hyper efficiency
2017: Eagles won the SB
2018: Bears defense was pretty great, came in second
2019: Took out the Saints in OT in wildcard, knocked out by the 49ers who went to the SB on the back of the defense
2020: Vikings defense fell off a cliff

Or...

15: 9-7

16: 8-7-1

17: 7-9

18: 8-7-1 (13-3 the year before)

19: 10-6

20: 7-9

21: 4-5

He's a good QB but I don't think his stats equal his impact. He's not often good in the moments he needs to be against good teams.

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