The 2018 Kirk Cousins Megathread

[Torchezim]

21 minutes ago, TENINCH said:

Cousins can scramble a little. He's 10x the passer that Keenum was. Keenum was a crap QB that had a career year behind an elite defense. He had a great running game behind him.

I didn’t say the running game was bad, but even with how efficient those two were, we both know Cook is a different breed.  
 

The offensive line was also horrid during his single great year. 

1 hour ago, since72 said:

Why are you blaming us for the Vikings QB situation?  Nobody posting here is named Rick Spielman. 

The level of fan discontent has absolutely zero impact on Rick Spielman's QB's options.

I think most of us are not content with mediocrity, but content with our front office trying to sign the best available QB to run the team.  If that QB is mediocre, it looks a lot the same, but it's really not.  It's a fine distinction.  How many elite QB's are on the open market?  If an elite QB is jealous of Kirk's $84 million, why do they sign a home team discount contract?  I don't know.  It's not my fault.  That much I know.

In what world did I place blame on the users of this forum?  Where?

The rest of your post is much of the same. 
 

I said being okay with mediocrity and showing glimpses of “good” isn’t good enough. It’s okay to expect more and demand more. I don’t see why everyone here doesn’t support that belief. 
 

Nothing I said had anything at all to do with Spielman’s choices....?

Edited November 12, 2019 by Torchezim

[Skins212689]

3 hours ago, since72 said:

OK, I follow what you're saying now.

Case Keenum = 2019 = $3.5 million salary = 1 win = $3.5 million per win

Kirk Cousins = 2019 = $29 million salary = 7 wins = $4.1 million per win

See?  We overpaid.  We should have signed Case Keenum and settled for 1-8 than Kirk Cousins at 7-3.  Gotcha.  I see why you're so ticked off at the Vikings front office.  Makes total sense now.

My statement was saying how other's in the Redskin bring up preferring to have Cousin's over Keenum as well. 

My statement to that is, I'd rather suck and be in position to upgrade the QB spot than to consistently go 7-9, 8-8, 9-7 and not make the playoffs with Cousin's or make them and have Cousin's go back to Mr Mediocre in Must Win moment's. 

Cousin's would've been traded to San Fran in 2017 for their 1st round pick and Washington's QB would've been Deshawn Watson had I been in charge of things. So Case nor Alex Smith would've been Redskins had I gotten my way. I want SuperBowls and to win those you have to Win big game's in the Playoff. Cousin's has yet to show that ability. 

[vikingsrule]

2 minutes ago, Skins212689 said:

My statement was saying how other's in the Redskin bring up preferring to have Cousin's over Keenum as well. 

My statement to that is, I'd rather suck and be in position to upgrade the QB spot than to consistently go 7-9, 8-8, 9-7 and not make the playoffs with Cousin's or make them and have Cousin's go back to Mr Mediocre in Must Win moment's. 

Cousin's would've been traded to San Fran in 2017 for their 1st round pick and Washington's QB would've been Deshawn Watson had I been in charge of things. So Case nor Alex Smith would've been Redskins had I gotten my way. I want SuperBowls and to win those you have to Win big game's in the Playoff. Cousin's has yet to show that ability. 

Watson needs to show that ability too but obviously there’s still a lot more to be written about him.

[Skins212689]

9 minutes ago, vikingsrule said:

Watson needs to show that ability too but obviously there’s still a lot more to be written about him.

Coming out of college Watson had beaten Alabama twice, that was enough for me to know he was the truth. Or at least I wouldn't have to worry about how he performed against the best of the best. 

[since72]

2 hours ago, Torchezim said:

In what world did I place blame on the users of this forum?  Where?

The rest of your post is much of the same. 
 

I said being okay with mediocrity and showing glimpses of “good” isn’t good enough. It’s okay to expect more and demand more. I don’t see why everyone here doesn’t support that belief. 
 

Nothing I said had anything at all to do with Spielman’s choices....?

This is my point.  If you are directing these comments toward the Vikings front office, fair enough.  But they seem to be directed at me (or us).  I don't understand how I go about "expecting more and demanding more" in such a way that Zygi Wilf and Rick Spielman will pay attention and do things differently and consequently win a Super Bowl.  Until I understand that, it's pointless to go Tony Robbins on me.  My higher expectations will not bring a HOF QB to the Vikings.

Since this is Footballs Future, what would you suggest the Vikings do at QB for 2021?  Draft, extend, trade, or sign another free agent?

[Torchezim]

3 minutes ago, since72 said:

This is my point.  If you are directing these comments toward the Vikings front office, fair enough.  But they seem to be directed at me (or us).  I don't understand how I go about "expecting more and demanding more" in such a way that Zygi Wilf and Rick Spielman will pay attention and do things differently and consequently win a Super Bowl.  Until I understand that, it's pointless to go Tony Robbins on me.  My higher expectations will not bring a HOF QB to the Vikings.

Since this is Footballs Future, what would you suggest the Vikings do at QB for 2021?  Draft, extend, trade, or sign another free agent?

I am directing the fact that we shouldn’t be happy with average all the time.

Yes, this is a forum, and even if someone within the Vikings organization was to see it, I don’t think it would matter much. But a lot of fans could matter. 
 

To answer you, I would hope to draft one that could sit for a while and learn.  If we drafted one in 2021 though, he probably wouldn’t have much time to sit. 

[Krauser]

The OL wasn’t bad in 2017. They were similar to this year: good at screens and run blocking, mediocre but not terrible at pass protection. Injuries took their toll at the end of the year but until then they were no liability.

The main reason Keenum had so many pressures was that he held the ball and tried to improvise (unlike Cousins, who’s had a long time to throw this year within the design of the play). It’s not because the OL was a problem.

Keenum played YOLO ball, Fitzmagic style, and had a run of great luck, repeatedly got bailed out by his receivers on downfield throws. He did have a couple of excellent games in there (Thanksgiving in Detroit was his best IMO) but overall the numbers looked better than he played. The team also benefitted from a fairly easy schedule with Rodgers hurt, catching the Saints in week one before their defense got up the speed, playing a Bengals team that had quit for the year, and having a “road” game in London against the hapless Browns.

2017 was fun but it was never going to happen again. Keenum was a gamer, but he’s not accurate downfield. They absolutely did the right thing in not extending him.

...

I also would‘ve been happy to keep Teddy, but evidently the team wasn’t comfortable that his knee would hold up. And of course he didn’t really play again until this year, so 2018 would’ve had to go in a different direction anyway.

He won games for the Saints this year but didn’t play especially well, or produce much. He still looks like the limited QB he was in 2015 — a conservative game-manager, but effective in that style — not the more aggressive downfield passer he seemed to be developing into in preseason 2016, before the injury.

...

Cousins is playing well this year. He hasn’t been mediocre, he’s been one of the 10 best QBs in the league. The scheme is well suited to him, but he’s played well within the design of the offense.

Goff’s performance last year is a decent comparison. Goff in 2018 had PFF grades of 84.4 (passing) and 85.5 (overall), both 8th best in the league. He was 4th in passer rating, 8th in YPA and 8th in passer rating. That’s all during the regular season. He had a few elite games (Chargers, Vikings on TNF, Saints regular season), but also had a terrible stretch, with 3 games in a row graded under 50 (Lions, Bears, Eagles). Despite those ups and downs, the Rams went to the Super Bowl and were an A+ defensive gameplan from Belichick away from winning it all.

Cousins by comparison this year has a PFF passing grade of 84.7, good for a tie for 3rd in the league with Brees, and an overall grade of 82.7, which ranks him 9th (between Prescott and Stafford). He’s 3rd in YPA and passer rating, and 10th in QBR (the QBR and PFF overall grades are both dragged down a little by his fumbles). He had a terrible game at Lambeau and didn’t play well in the other 2 losses, but the Bears and Chiefs games were not especially his fault, as the OL struggled, the run game couldn’t get going, and the defense didn’t step up either.

Goff is a limited QB, as this year has shown (Goff’s rookie year and 4th season this year are both clearly worse than anything Cousins has done as a starter, including last year). But he’s a legitimate NFL franchise QB, who has shown he can lead a winning team in the right scenario (similar limitations exist for every franchise QB, even elite ones, as witnessed by Rodgers 2015-18, Brees’ three years of 7-9, Wilson’s career since the INT in the Super Bowl, etc).

I think Cousins is quite similar to Goff in terms of his talent level and career performance. He is a franchise QB, though not elite. Other recent comparisons would be Stafford, Garoppolo, and Ryan. Some of the recently drafted starters seem likely to end up in this ballpark — one or both of Wentz and Prescott, at least. QBs in that tier are a clear step down from the best of the best (Wilson, Rodgers, Brady, Brees, and soon enough no doubt Mahomes and Watson). No one should mistake a B+ QB for an A+, but it’s not true that you can’t win with them, or that they’re not worth paying.

There is an argument to be made that unless you have an MVP at QB, you should keep looking for a QB. But since the Vikings didn’t have the option last year of signing a QB that good, it’s hard to fault them or complain too much that they landed Cousins. And since Cousins is being paid 20% less than Goff’s extension ($33.5M AAV), less than Ryan and Wentz, and basically the same as Garoppolo and Stafford, it’s hard to look at his contract and think he’s significantly overpaid. 

...

The Rams with Goff didn’t win it all last year, but I still wouldn’t think of their year or their team as mediocre, or their fans as settling for anything by being happy with how well they played in 2018. 

Similarly, I don’t think Vikings fans should have too much reason to be upset if they “only” win 11-12 games this year, however it goes in the playoffs. The NFL is incredibly competitive, and the margins are very small. Even the better teams don’t have much more than a 5% chance of winning it all, heading into the year (except the Patriots, sure).

The Vikings are a really good team this year, somewhere around the 5th best in the league so far by multiple metrics including points differential, DVOA and PFF grades.  Cousins is playing well. The offense has been excellent. The defense has regressed to some extent but they’ve also had some bad luck in coverage (two dropped pick 6s, the phantom holding call on Smith and a series of ridiculously improbable completions made the Cowboys stat line look a lot better than it should have).

They are 7-3 and would control their own destiny for the division and the 2 seed if only the Packers hadn’t been propped up by the refs in the Lions game. That’s despite playing 6 games on the road (more than any other team in the league), and facing 5 teams who currently have a winning record (compared to 2 on their remaining schedule). They do need some injury luck (hope Kline and Thielen come back soon), and Zimmer will need to spruce up the coverage during the bye week.

But this is more or less exactly where you hope the team would be after week 10, if they’re going to develop into a winner. No team in the league comes through the regular season unscathed, or without some serious concerns. Just looking at the NFC teams ahead of them in the standings: the Niners just lost at home and their QB looked overwhelmed, the Saints just lost to the Falcons at home, the Packers got blown out by the Chargers, and Seahawks have only one win by more than 7 points despite facing the Bengals, Browns, Cards, Bucs and Falcons.

Fans who ignore all the evidence that the Vikings are a good team that’s playing well this year while repeatedly emphasizing the few negatives and arguing that the team needs to be turned over from the GM to the coach to the QB to the OL to the defense are tiresome. It makes me think you don’t know what you’re watching, since you can’t tell the difference between good and bad, or last year and this year, or what you expected or feared (or maybe hoped? — so you could be right?) and what’s actually happening in the actual games.

My suggestion to any Vikings fan reading this is to enjoy the year for what it is. This is about as good as any fan or any team could realistically hope their team could be, 10 weeks in.

Even so, the season very likely won’t have a happy ending. That’s not because Cousins is a mistake, or the fans are settling for mediocrity, or the front office is incompetent but because it’s unlikely for any single team to win the Super Bowl. Despite all the good signs so far, the Vikings are still definite underdogs to win it all. They’re now up to a 7% chance in the 538 model, but that still leaves them roughly 13:1 against. 

But of course the other good teams have similarly long-but-not-impossible odds. And one of them is going to win.

The Vikings are good enough to win this year. They probably won’t, but they might.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Krauser

[vikingsrule]

As long as Belichick and Brady are still going strong, with that defense, the Pats are going to win it all anyway. Unless they have to go to Baltimore again.

[PrplChilPill]

5 hours ago, Krauser said:

The OL wasn’t bad in 2017. They were similar to this year: good at screens and run blocking, mediocre but not terrible at pass protection. Injuries took their toll at the end of the year but until then they were no liability.

.............................................................................

...

.............................................Lambeau

...............

The Vikings are good enough to win this year. They probably won’t, but they might.

To be clear, you really think the Vikings are good enough to beat Seattle, GB, SF and NO? Probably on the road, in the playoffs? I mean, yes, I agree, they are good. But I don't see an elite team right now. They got ridiculously luck in Dallas when Dallas decided to run the ball at the end.....

I'd say the Vikings are closer to the 10th best team in the league right now. Probably an 11 win team. Good to very good, but not elite.

[Krauser]

1 hour ago, vikingsrule said:

As long as Belichick and Brady are still going strong, with that defense, the Pats are going to win it all anyway. Unless they have to go to Baltimore again.

Super Bowl winners and how the Patriots finished by comparison

2018: Patriots (NE 10, Rams 3)
2017: Eagles (PHI 41, NE 33)  — Patriots lose SB 41-33, with the final play a Brady-to Gronk Hail Mary attempt, incomplete in the end zone
2016: Patriots (NE 34, ATL 28 in OT, a game the Falcons led 28-3 with 17 minutes left)
2015: Broncos (DEN 24, CAR 10) — Patriots lose the AFCCG 20-18 in Denver, their last 2 possessions featuring a long completion to Gronk on 4th and 10 followed by an incompletion to Gronk in the end zone on 4th down, then a TD to Gronk in the end zone with 12 seconds left but an intercepted 2-point conversion attempt
2014: Patriots (NE 28, SEA 24, a game the Seahawks led by 10 points with 8 minutes left, and had 2nd and goal at the 1 with 26 seconds left when Butler picked Wilson)
2013: Seahawks (SEA 43, DEN 8) — Patriots lose the AFCCG 26-16 in Denver, a game the Broncos led 23-3 with 12 minutes left. Brady scored to close the gap to 10 with 4 minutes left but a 2-pt conversion failed and Denver recovered the onside kick, then ran out the clock. 2013 was Manning’s amazing comeback MVP season. 
2012: Ravens (BAL 34, SF 31) — Patriots lose the AFCCG 28-13 at home, shutout after leading 13-7 at halftime. Gronk didn’t play, and Brady finished with a passer rating of 62.7
2011: Giants (NYG 21, NE 17) — Giants put together an 88 yard TD drive in the last 4 minutes, including a superbly improbably Eli to Mario Manningham completion along the sideline. Patriots get to midfield but 2 Hail Mary attempts to Hernandez fall incomplete.

That’s the entire post-Childress and post-Favre era for the Vikings: Spielman and Frazier, then Zimmer; Ponder then Teddy then Bradford, Keenum and Cousins. Only one member of the Vikings team this year has been around longer (Griffen, drafted in 2010).

And that entire time, the Super Bowl has either been won by the Patriots, or by a team that beat the Patriots (twice, despite a Brady Hail Mary attempt on the last play of the Super Bowl), or by a team that beat a team that beat the Patriots (the furthest being 2013 when Manning’s MVP year led the Broncos to win the AFCCG at home, but then the Seahawks defense destroyed them in the Super Bowl). 

NE are probably more vulnerable this year than usual, unless Gronk comes back, but the defense has been incredible. Still, it’d be no surprise if they win the AFC, or at least come within the last play of the game of winning it vs the Ravens or Chiefs.

...but the point is that if your football fandom is being evaluated only on Super Bowl wins in the 2010s, you’re probably pretty unhappy — unless you’re a Patriots fan. 

[Krauser]

4 minutes ago, PrplChilPill said:

To be clear, you really think the Vikings are good enough to beat Seattle, GB, SF and NO? Probably on the road, in the playoffs? I mean, yes, I agree, they are good. But I don't see an elite team right now. They got ridiculously luck in Dallas when Dallas decided to run the ball at the end.....

I'd say the Vikings are closer to the 10th best team in the league right now. Probably an 11 win team. Good to very good, but not elite.

Seattle’s defense hadn’t been good until MNF. They needed OT to beat the Bucs at home. 

The Saints have also won a bunch of one score games, and just got pantsed at home by the Falcons. Brees is aging. He hasn’t made a single “big time throw” this year.

GB would be 7-3 if the Lions game was called correctly, and 6-4 if Cousins hadn’t choked. They got killed by the Chargers. They’ve played 6 home games already.

None of those teams has been elite this year. They all have comparable or worse DVOA than the Vikings, and worse points differentials.

SF is the closest thing the NFC has had to an elite team but they’ve played an easy schedule and we don’t know if Garoppolo will hold up under pressure any more than Cousins has (he folded badly vs Seattle).

Vikings definitely have a realistic chance of beating any of those teams on the road in the playoffs. Maybe it’s a 45-55 chance and they’d be underdogs, but no way should they throw in the towel now, in November.

[vikingsrule]

I think MN can beat any team in the NFC this year, except Seattle and San Francisco. I just don’t think Mn matches up well against Seattle. While they did beat Tampa by a FG, it took a 40 point effort by Tampa to get there and I will again state my reservations of Cousins leading this team to a win in a 30+ point shootout. I don’t think he can keep pace if Wilson is playing at an elite level as he is. 

The 49ers worry because of their front four. They will wreck the Vikes OL which will inevitably lead to another showing like the Bears game for Cousins.

Edited November 13, 2019 by vikingsrule

[swede700]

As long as the Vikings don't have to face the Bears at Soldier Field in the playoffs (which ain't gonna happen), I believe they have a pretty good chance to win, no matter the location.  Would I have high expectation of having to win 3 straight road games?  Probably not, but they could certainly do it.  

[Worm Guts]

I'm not concerned with Cousins in a shootout, I am concerned by how I saw the Vikings play against Seattle last season.  I don't know last year Seattle's team defense compares to this years, but the Vikings offense was overwhelmed last season.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Worm Guts

[PrplChilPill]

1 hour ago, Krauser said:

Seattle’s defense hadn’t been good until MNF. They needed OT to beat the Bucs at home. 

The Saints have also won a bunch of one score games, and just got pantsed at home by the Falcons. Brees is aging. He hasn’t made a single “big time throw” this year.

GB would be 7-3 if the Lions game was called correctly, and 6-4 if Cousins hadn’t choked. They got killed by the Chargers. They’ve played 6 home games already.

None of those teams has been elite this year. They all have comparable or worse DVOA than the Vikings, and worse points differentials.

SF is the closest thing the NFC has had to an elite team but they’ve played an easy schedule and we don’t know if Garoppolo will hold up under pressure any more than Cousins has (he folded badly vs Seattle).

Vikings definitely have a realistic chance of beating any of those teams on the road in the playoffs. Maybe it’s a 45-55 chance and they’d be underdogs, but no way should they throw in the towel now, in November.

Throw in the towel? Why is that even in your reply?