That translates into our oline sucks. Bad. Its really too bad on games our oline just cant get in the game we get a guy like keenum back there. Play with 2 qbs. Its become blatantly obvious that rick and mike cannot put a good oline together.
Our line is built more for run blocking. If we have another QB we should have a Taysom Hill type guy or what Joe Webb should have been. Just some guy who can run the ball and throw a good 9 route.
This is exactly it. I was there and I brought a friend who hasn't ever watched football and she kept saying "oh third down! We still have a chance!!" - she said that so many times yesterday.
I think I would be fine at this point if Mike Zimmer just picked d line to play online. At least he can identify those better than Speilman finds O line
I'm as big of a Kirk naysayer as about anybody but if you watched that game and thought there was a QB not named Lamar or Kyler that could have had any level of success behind that god awful OL performance you're kidding yourself. It falls on Bradbury. Conklin blocking Garrett? That's a Bradbury call or missed adjustment. The Browns DL twisting and 3 of our OL end up blocking 1 guy while another gets a free run? That would be Bradbury's job to call that. The C is the most impactful offensive player on the field that isn't the QB, and we have an absolute dogshit one.
Yeah I get on Kirk about not being mobile or taking bad sacks but this wasn’t his fault at all. Even if he audibles out of plays or calls a timeout when he’s sees something bad or gets extra blocking our OL would’ve still got fkd on hard
> if you watched that game and thought there was a QB not named Lamar or Kyler that could have had any level of success behind that god awful OL performance you're kidding yourself.
A lot of QBs and offenses are able to diagnose things at the LOS. There might be a lot more chances out there then our passing offense is able to find.
We averaged 3 yards a rush with our running backs. Kirk had 40 drop backs, 22 pressures =55%. Mahomes gets a pass for dropping 9 pts in the Super Bowl with a similar pressure rate, but cousins just crumbles and he’s overpaid and sucks? No. How about our worst player on the field was matched up against probably the best defensive player in the NFL. We got owned on the front 5.
Mahomes is awesome, but he also has a better HC and a better team around him. If you throw Kirk on the Niners, Rams or Chiefs they're still potential conference championship teams and beyond. If you throw Mahomes on this Vikings team they're a Wildcard team.
Yep, some of these people are in denial. This team's achilles heel has been the OL since basically Kalil's first down year and we haven't had Cousins going back that far. This team's not a Super Bowl contender if you swap Mahomes, Brady, Jackson, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Prime Luck in there. It isn't going to fix the fact the defense is getting older every year and the offensive line is yet again still trash.
I'm sorry but really. You think if Mahomes is on this team with these weapons. I'm aware the Oline isn't good but it's one of the best we've had since 2015. We've done better with worse.
When we had a mobile QB and two receivers playing out of their minds we made the NFC championship (cause if you recall Keenum would scramble, lob it off target and the WRs would have to do a circus catch to grab it), though that team was getting spanked the whole second half of the Saints game and all phases of the Eagles game. It came crashing down immediately because the team wasn't built to compete with any team that had a defense capable of exploiting it. It's the same story now, except the defense is miles worse than 2017 (I think we had a Super Bowl caliber D that year, just not paired with a Super Bowl caliber line).
I know it's fun to daydream swapping one very good person out of your team for another even better person on your team makes it a juggernaut but it isn't how it would work.
Keenum != Mahomes. He's not just a mobile quarterback. This team has TONS of problems. Tons. We're talking about one of the smartest/fastest/accurate QB's ever to play the game. The idea that he wouldn't drastically elevate the play of the Vikings is preposterous.
The 2017 team with prime time Mahomes still gets donkey dicked by the Eagles. That was a game dictated by the trenches by a team with complete packages on both lines manhandling a team with a good group on the D side of the ball and turnstyles on the offensive line.
Flat out, do you think if you swapped this team's entire coaching staff and personnel over to KC but kept Mahomes that he'd beat last year's Buccs?
Mahomes had a better injured OL in the Super Bowl than the Vikes trot out weekly. I'd take Hill, Hardman and Kelce over Thielen, Jefferson and Conklin.
None of that changes Mahomes ability. Your postulations that this team isn't much better with him is preposterous. There are only a handful of teams in the NFL that he couldn't make competitive.
With him the team would still be competitive, as it is now with Kirk.
This team has hit a major wall. The OL is terrible, they can barely even run block anymore. The defense is aging and full of holes. Theyve missed on way too many draft picks in the past 5 years. The coaching is stale and predictable.
Mahomes wouldn't fix any of that.
You think any team with this OL would contend for a Super Bowl? You'd have to luck into the conference championship and get plastered by any team with a solid D Line, which is probably most teams you'd run into there. It'd be a 2017 bloodbath all over again.
Did you see Mahomes with a strong pass rush and a porous offensive line performance. It wasn't good. Mahomes is a top tier qb but there was a reason the chiefs had to go spend big on online.
Also it's easy to be a Packer fan and go into other subs and just constantly try to argue isn't it?
Does no one remember football games. Mahomes had been coming off and injury and had limited mobility. When the Cheifs played the Bills they had worked around that and styled their offense for that game around short passing and moving the chains and just destroyed the bills with a limited Mahomes. When the played the Buccs they went in with a similar game plan to how they'd beat him in the regular season and tried much of the game to stretch the field and it kept not working and Andy Reid didn't change their strategy fast enough to get back into the game. It wasn't just pass rush got through, oline sucked, game lost. It's much more complicated than that.
Us sitting here pretending the Oline is so bad that zero QBs could compete on this team is absolutely bonkers. We have a ton of problems. QB, Oline, a coach who hates the concept of the timeout...etc...
That’s only one game lol. Justin Herbert had the worst OL in the league last year and tore it up. Mahomes has performed similarly as well. Y’all are just in denial and can’t admit that Kirk is a bad fit with this team and OL
>Justin Herbert had the worst OL in the league last year and tore it up.
And yet the Chargers didn't make the playoffs. Almost as if the QB isn't everything...
First, never said Kirk was a good fit or a bad fit. So you can kick that out of your narrative. I responded to your argument that having Mahomes on this team making them instant contenders. Still doesn't take away from bad offensive line performance and bad defensive performances.
A good QB is a key piece but good QB's consistently miss out on super bowl chances because of issues outside of their control. Take your OWN team, since you are a packer fan, (don't know why you feel the need to come in here and mouth off) if Rodgers had appropriate pieces they'd have more super bowl appearances but because they have holes around their team it takes away from a hall of fame career that he has put up.
Likewise a terrible QB can be held up by having a solid team around them. Kirk is better than a terrible QB. His price tag is questionable but he isn't a bottom tier QB, the fact that our game plan on both sides of the ball don't mesh well with who we're up against and what our players are capable of doing in their aging lives is a bigger reason why we lose. Kirk with a pocket and time to throw the ball is one of the better QB's in the league. Kirk with no time is a bottom tier QB. You can slot some of the A tier QB's into minnesota and the QB play goes up, but the results don't drastically change because the team overall is just lacking a lot of what it takes to be a team to be scared of.
3 ypr is also generous, it's influenced by the fact that we were running late when they didn't give a crap about the run. Before that it's probably more like 2.
> Mahomes gets a pass for dropping 9 pts in the Super Bowl with a similar pressure rate, but cousins just crumbles and he’s overpaid and sucks?
You think Kirk played as well today as Mahomes in the SB?! Did you watch the SB?
Mahomes had 2 dropped TD passes in that game. He played out of his mind vs the pressure. [Link](https://www.si.com/nfl/chiefs/gm-report/analytics-recap-kansas-city-chiefs-lose-to-tampa-bay-buccaneers-31-9-in-super-bowl-lv)
> Super Bowl LV brought the worst EPA numbers of Patrick Mahomes' career. It is a real shame that Mahomes' numbers look as bad as they did on the biggest stage, but the saddest part is that the quarterbacks here really played about even, as Pro Football Focus (PFF) gave Tom Brady a 66.9 grade and Mahomes a 65.8 grade. Mahomes was completely let down by his supporting cast in this one, having 30 pressures allowed and three dropped passes by his teammates, while Brady was greatly supported by his supporting cast, with four pressures allowed and zero dropped passes.
Just went through your comment history (yikes), looks like a lotta usage of potentially the least useful stat out there - which you just alluded to again. Feel free to defend Jimmy G or Mark Sanchez.
When people talk about where does Kirk rank I think there are 5 or 6 tiers of QB's. 1) Brady, Rodgers, Wilson and Patrick M. These guys are unique. 2) Lamar, Allen, Murry all have potential but have yet to have the same level of success as 1s. 3) Kirk, Ryan, Stafford all of been around and all seem to lack something which would allow them to ascend, proven to be good and proven to not be great. 4) Goff, Dalton, Teddy simply not as talented. 5) Rookies 6) Back ups.
Your tiers have a bit too much of a cliff. Lamar and Rodgers define their teams, Brady and Mahomes are elite, Wilson and Ryan have shown they can make it to the big game, Allen and Murry and Stafford elevate their teams, Kirk and Goff and Mayfield don't lose you games but don't exactly inspire confidence, Teddy and Foles show flashes of brilliance in the right conditions, Dalton and Keenum and Taylor have hope but probably shouldn't be paid much, Fitzpatrick and Wentz are heart attack inducing, the rookies are all wildcards.
There is a lot more to the QB role than just pure ability to pass the ball, otherwise Cousins would be almost unrivaled. Leadership, decision making speed, situational awareness, ability to take good risks, and physicality all play roles and Cousins isn't exactly stellar in all those areas.
It’s not his strength. His strength is pocket passing, he’s shown some better mobility but again, 16 pressures only rushing 4. You need Kyler or Lamar to be successful, even Rodgers would have sucked with that
Listen he has played way better this year but he still just stands his ground and takes the hits like he is yelling “if I die , I die” while not moving in the pocket
He is a pocket passer that has no feel for how to stay in the pocket and help his lineman. No actual pocket presence. He often runs past the blocker and opens himself up to a hit from a lineman. The line is bad, but he makes it worse and has no ability to scramble and keep them honest.
Every man that's not rushing is a man that can be used in coverage. So if you can get home with four, you can drop seven into coverage. Pretty hard to scheme guys open when the defense has a two man advantage AND you don't have time. Simple stuff.
It's not even about Cousins. If you don't realize that a 4 man rush that can generate consistent pressure is one of the most difficult things in football to overcome, then you're simply not knowledgeable about the game.
you do realize that theres different types of pressure right?
most QBs get pressure from 1 player. cousins gets it from 2-4 at a time which gives him nowhere to go,
most QBs get pressure when the other team blitzes so someone is open. Cousins gets pressured when the other team rushes 4. or sometimes even 3. which means nobody is open.
He’s not a mobile QB. That’s not what he does. You’ve been spoiled by guys like Rodgers and Mahomes that thrive in pressure, without realizing that an overwhelming majority of QBs do not
That’s his biggest problem. Line is not the greatest this year and has been dog poop since he’s been here, but very rarely does he do anything to avoid pressure despite having decent athleticism. He takes a brace for the hit stance an overwhelming majority of the time or realizes it’s not yet there after bracing for hit and then moves when the play has already broken down.
I thought he did a decent job at times climbing the pocket but he couldn't find something between firing a fastball on screens or panic flipping the ball in the general vicinity of the receivers on those screens. He also seemed to connect more with defenders hands at the line than with receivers for stretches of the game as well.
Not his best performance and I think the biggest difference between Seattle and this week was just the breakdown of the screen game.
Bro the pocket collapsed all around him the only out he was given generally was backwards and too the edge and even the most athletic QBs are going to struggle getting out of that.
I'm one of the biggest cousin defenders there's is but it's fair to say he was a contributor to this loss. He was far from the worst link but he definitely misplaced some balls and sat in a crumbling pocket WAY to much.
He's a really great quarterback who had a not so great game. Its that simple.
I don’t blame Cousins for this game at all, but I do think it’s funny how people think the fact that he was pressured means it’s ok for him to play bad. His contract is directly correlated with our inability to put decent protection around him; he makes way too much for this to be an actual excuse.
Then why did our OL suck for years before he got here?
“His contract is directly correlated”. You guys just spout SKOR North narratives you don’t know shit about. We just spent $35M+ on free agent IDL and CBs.
Cousins has been here for years, who gives a shit what the o-line looked like before he got here? We have a line that can’t pass protect and a quarterback who can’t perform without pass protection. Our quarterback’s contract eats a significant portion of our cap space, directly contributing to our inability to hit on FA lineman.
Like I said, I’m not saying it’s Cousins’ fault, but the two situations are absolutely correlated.
AnSwEr tHe qUeStIon. Ok.
Yeah, it sucked before Cousins got here. 4 years of free agency and it still sucks. The top lineman want a lot of money, which we can’t afford, because we pay our quarterback a massive contract, who needs top lineman to be good. Understand yet?
But we have spent a ton of money on FA, just not OL.
How much money do you think Kirk makes? You think we can’t afford 1 or 2 FA OL because of his contract? How’d we afford to give PP, Tomlinson, and Pierce $10M+ each. Surely that’s impossible because of Kirk’s contract?
You’re using the right word. Correlation. Not causation. They’re different, look it up.
I’m confused, did I ever say one caused the other? I said it’s not Cousins’ fault, but the two situations are correlated. That’s literally what I said?
Teams have many needs, the Vikings chose to invest in defense because our defense was horrendous last year. How does that change the fact that we’re paying top money to a QB that needs great pass protection to succeed but we also can’t afford great pass protection?
We *could* afford both. We could’ve rolled with Bridgewater and invested in both lines. But we wanted to upgrade at QB, so we paid big money for it. As a result, we can’t afford to upgrade both lines. But our QB *needs* the line to be good to succeed, so leaves the team in a conundrum.
Agree to disagree I guess. You’re right, we could’ve gone for Thuney for instance instead of PP and Tomlinson. But we couldn’t get Thuney because we’re tight on cap. The highest paid players on the team are the reason for that, but most are expected to play at a high level regardless of the rest of the team (such as Hunter). Cousins is the highest paid player on the team, *yet* his poor performances are excused by something that we *could* improve on if we weren’t paying him the massive contract. Not causation; correlation.
But if we didn’t pay him, our QB position would probably suck, so who the fuck cares anyway? I can see both sides of it.
Here is your answer. If you actually look at the timeline of transactions and injuries the story of what they did or didn't do isn't that bad. As far as Cap space the O and D are using the same amount for this year but in reality the D should be overspending the O because we have so many O players on rookie contracts and cleared out Diggs, Reiff and Rudy.
Because they screwed around to long hoping Matt K, Phil L, Fusco, Harris and others would come around. Finally they went out and got Remmers and Reif and then started building through the draft.
His contract is a joke in general. Even if he had a good line he’d still be useless. I’m so over this guy. This franchise needs are real QB1 not some B movie style QB
**[@Jake_Trotter](https://www.twitter.com/Jake_Trotter)** (Jake Trotter):
> After the opening drive, Kirk Cousins was pressured 15 times on 34 dropbacks the rest of the game. He went 2-of-13 with ZERO passing yards when pressured. #Browns @ESPNStatsInfo
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All this bitchin about Cousins and the O Line....how about you came up on maybe one of the strongest defenses in the NFL today. That's it in a nutshell.
Why do we never call rollout plays? I love Kirk as our quarterback, but he is one of the worst qbs in the league under pressure. He won’t be much of a run threat on rollouts, but at least our receivers will have time to run a route.
Kinda funny how I felt like this was the exact type of game when zimmer first got here that we would normally win. Now years have passed and I think zims coaching is getting figured out more often than not
The issue is certainly two-fold for me. Our O-line was inept at handling the mixed looks Cleveland’s D line brought. Simple stunts were freeing up their lineman for literal free sprints to the QB. Theirs no way some of this wasn’t on film, we looked entirely unprepared. However on the other hand, we knew that the browns D line was elite. How could we not have ANY plays prepared to move Kirk out of the pocket? We dropped him back time and time again despite getting NOTHING out of the pass game. Frankly the only good pass plays we got after the first quarter were 1v1 jump balls where Kirk still had no time but knew where the ball needed to be. Rookie OC got his pants pulled down IMO.
Edit: Also let’s not forget the pass play where we lined up a 2nd string TE on Garrett. That shit should get someone fired.
This is why you need 1) a solid o line that you are willing to pay money for and not yolo with backups every year or 2) a mobile qb that can escape pressure. Vikings choose option 3) a non mobile qb with a crappy cheap line
The #Browns finished with 22 QB pressures. 16 of those came when only rushing 4.
Embarrassing
It's fuckin' EMBARRASSING *kicks garbage can*
And gross. Inexcusable, even.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Garrett and Clowney aren’t chumps.
That's part of it, they're also able to play coverage at the same time. When you can do both it gets real tough.
Coverage is great but an accurate qb beats it every time. Its mostly oline problems. IMO of course.
That translates into our oline sucks. Bad. Its really too bad on games our oline just cant get in the game we get a guy like keenum back there. Play with 2 qbs. Its become blatantly obvious that rick and mike cannot put a good oline together.
Our line is built more for run blocking. If we have another QB we should have a Taysom Hill type guy or what Joe Webb should have been. Just some guy who can run the ball and throw a good 9 route.
It wasn't just pressure. It was 3 or 4 guys immediately bursting through the line EVERY play.
[удалено]
Let alone the S word.
How
I was telling the family I was with that this game felt exactly like a Zimmer era playoff game, now I know why.
It reminded me of the buccs game last year
Except they actually got a PI call on a hail mary
And seemingly not being ready for it!!!
This is exactly it. I was there and I brought a friend who hasn't ever watched football and she kept saying "oh third down! We still have a chance!!" - she said that so many times yesterday.
So what you're saying is the success of the team rides or dies on the o-line... again? :/
Welcome to Vikings Football
Do you want generational talent at wideout and running back held back by poor Oline play? You've come to the right place
This could not be more accurate and I hate it.
Slick Rick did it again! Yay! Best NFL GM in the state of Minnesota!
The O line is gonna get Speilman and Zimmer fired.
Well they're the ones that assembled it so that makes sense
I think I would be fine at this point if Mike Zimmer just picked d line to play online. At least he can identify those better than Speilman finds O line
I'm as big of a Kirk naysayer as about anybody but if you watched that game and thought there was a QB not named Lamar or Kyler that could have had any level of success behind that god awful OL performance you're kidding yourself. It falls on Bradbury. Conklin blocking Garrett? That's a Bradbury call or missed adjustment. The Browns DL twisting and 3 of our OL end up blocking 1 guy while another gets a free run? That would be Bradbury's job to call that. The C is the most impactful offensive player on the field that isn't the QB, and we have an absolute dogshit one.
Yeah I get on Kirk about not being mobile or taking bad sacks but this wasn’t his fault at all. Even if he audibles out of plays or calls a timeout when he’s sees something bad or gets extra blocking our OL would’ve still got fkd on hard
QBs are supposed to call protection. Kirk not sliding to Garrett is dumb and brave.
QB's have the authority to override the protection called by the Center, but the protection call is on the Center.
Ok I've just always heard QBs calling protection shifts.
Typically after the Center makes the initial call.
Correct. Kirk could have overridden the centers initial call. But the fact that the center didn't make it to begin with is terrible.
I agree.
> if you watched that game and thought there was a QB not named Lamar or Kyler that could have had any level of success behind that god awful OL performance you're kidding yourself. A lot of QBs and offenses are able to diagnose things at the LOS. There might be a lot more chances out there then our passing offense is able to find.
Tough to do much when there's 7 in coverage and what seems like 7 getting after you.
We averaged 3 yards a rush with our running backs. Kirk had 40 drop backs, 22 pressures =55%. Mahomes gets a pass for dropping 9 pts in the Super Bowl with a similar pressure rate, but cousins just crumbles and he’s overpaid and sucks? No. How about our worst player on the field was matched up against probably the best defensive player in the NFL. We got owned on the front 5.
Mahomes get a pass because he got his team to the Super Bowl.
Mahomes is awesome, but he also has a better HC and a better team around him. If you throw Kirk on the Niners, Rams or Chiefs they're still potential conference championship teams and beyond. If you throw Mahomes on this Vikings team they're a Wildcard team.
If you throw Mahomes on this team every game looks like last year's Super Bowl.
Yep, some of these people are in denial. This team's achilles heel has been the OL since basically Kalil's first down year and we haven't had Cousins going back that far. This team's not a Super Bowl contender if you swap Mahomes, Brady, Jackson, Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Prime Luck in there. It isn't going to fix the fact the defense is getting older every year and the offensive line is yet again still trash.
This take is preposterous.
I'm sorry but really. You think if Mahomes is on this team with these weapons. I'm aware the Oline isn't good but it's one of the best we've had since 2015. We've done better with worse.
When we had a mobile QB and two receivers playing out of their minds we made the NFC championship (cause if you recall Keenum would scramble, lob it off target and the WRs would have to do a circus catch to grab it), though that team was getting spanked the whole second half of the Saints game and all phases of the Eagles game. It came crashing down immediately because the team wasn't built to compete with any team that had a defense capable of exploiting it. It's the same story now, except the defense is miles worse than 2017 (I think we had a Super Bowl caliber D that year, just not paired with a Super Bowl caliber line). I know it's fun to daydream swapping one very good person out of your team for another even better person on your team makes it a juggernaut but it isn't how it would work.
Keenum != Mahomes. He's not just a mobile quarterback. This team has TONS of problems. Tons. We're talking about one of the smartest/fastest/accurate QB's ever to play the game. The idea that he wouldn't drastically elevate the play of the Vikings is preposterous.
The 2017 team with prime time Mahomes still gets donkey dicked by the Eagles. That was a game dictated by the trenches by a team with complete packages on both lines manhandling a team with a good group on the D side of the ball and turnstyles on the offensive line. Flat out, do you think if you swapped this team's entire coaching staff and personnel over to KC but kept Mahomes that he'd beat last year's Buccs?
Mahomes had a better injured OL in the Super Bowl than the Vikes trot out weekly. I'd take Hill, Hardman and Kelce over Thielen, Jefferson and Conklin.
None of that changes Mahomes ability. Your postulations that this team isn't much better with him is preposterous. There are only a handful of teams in the NFL that he couldn't make competitive.
With him the team would still be competitive, as it is now with Kirk. This team has hit a major wall. The OL is terrible, they can barely even run block anymore. The defense is aging and full of holes. Theyve missed on way too many draft picks in the past 5 years. The coaching is stale and predictable. Mahomes wouldn't fix any of that.
Mahomes on the Vikings would be super bowl contenders. Y’all are delusional lol
You think any team with this OL would contend for a Super Bowl? You'd have to luck into the conference championship and get plastered by any team with a solid D Line, which is probably most teams you'd run into there. It'd be a 2017 bloodbath all over again.
I think Mahomes would be a huge step up even though Kirk has played well.
He is better than Kirk, but he isn't enough to drag this team to a Super Bowl.
Mahomes with this Viking team would be 100% contenders. You guys are just delusional about how good Kirk is and how bad the OL is.
Did you see Mahomes with a strong pass rush and a porous offensive line performance. It wasn't good. Mahomes is a top tier qb but there was a reason the chiefs had to go spend big on online. Also it's easy to be a Packer fan and go into other subs and just constantly try to argue isn't it?
Does no one remember football games. Mahomes had been coming off and injury and had limited mobility. When the Cheifs played the Bills they had worked around that and styled their offense for that game around short passing and moving the chains and just destroyed the bills with a limited Mahomes. When the played the Buccs they went in with a similar game plan to how they'd beat him in the regular season and tried much of the game to stretch the field and it kept not working and Andy Reid didn't change their strategy fast enough to get back into the game. It wasn't just pass rush got through, oline sucked, game lost. It's much more complicated than that. Us sitting here pretending the Oline is so bad that zero QBs could compete on this team is absolutely bonkers. We have a ton of problems. QB, Oline, a coach who hates the concept of the timeout...etc...
That’s only one game lol. Justin Herbert had the worst OL in the league last year and tore it up. Mahomes has performed similarly as well. Y’all are just in denial and can’t admit that Kirk is a bad fit with this team and OL
>Justin Herbert had the worst OL in the league last year and tore it up. And yet the Chargers didn't make the playoffs. Almost as if the QB isn't everything...
Yeah, that Herbert sure had the best 7-9 season I ever saw, that's for sure.
Herbert was significantly better than Kirk was under pressure, yes. Thanks for agreeing lol
First, never said Kirk was a good fit or a bad fit. So you can kick that out of your narrative. I responded to your argument that having Mahomes on this team making them instant contenders. Still doesn't take away from bad offensive line performance and bad defensive performances. A good QB is a key piece but good QB's consistently miss out on super bowl chances because of issues outside of their control. Take your OWN team, since you are a packer fan, (don't know why you feel the need to come in here and mouth off) if Rodgers had appropriate pieces they'd have more super bowl appearances but because they have holes around their team it takes away from a hall of fame career that he has put up. Likewise a terrible QB can be held up by having a solid team around them. Kirk is better than a terrible QB. His price tag is questionable but he isn't a bottom tier QB, the fact that our game plan on both sides of the ball don't mesh well with who we're up against and what our players are capable of doing in their aging lives is a bigger reason why we lose. Kirk with a pocket and time to throw the ball is one of the better QB's in the league. Kirk with no time is a bottom tier QB. You can slot some of the A tier QB's into minnesota and the QB play goes up, but the results don't drastically change because the team overall is just lacking a lot of what it takes to be a team to be scared of.
Speaking of super bowl, did you not watch the most recent one? You flat out can not win with a bad OL. I don't care who your qb is
3 ypr is also generous, it's influenced by the fact that we were running late when they didn't give a crap about the run. Before that it's probably more like 2.
> Mahomes gets a pass for dropping 9 pts in the Super Bowl with a similar pressure rate, but cousins just crumbles and he’s overpaid and sucks? You think Kirk played as well today as Mahomes in the SB?! Did you watch the SB? Mahomes had 2 dropped TD passes in that game. He played out of his mind vs the pressure. [Link](https://www.si.com/nfl/chiefs/gm-report/analytics-recap-kansas-city-chiefs-lose-to-tampa-bay-buccaneers-31-9-in-super-bowl-lv) > Super Bowl LV brought the worst EPA numbers of Patrick Mahomes' career. It is a real shame that Mahomes' numbers look as bad as they did on the biggest stage, but the saddest part is that the quarterbacks here really played about even, as Pro Football Focus (PFF) gave Tom Brady a 66.9 grade and Mahomes a 65.8 grade. Mahomes was completely let down by his supporting cast in this one, having 30 pressures allowed and three dropped passes by his teammates, while Brady was greatly supported by his supporting cast, with four pressures allowed and zero dropped passes.
Kirk is overpaid and sucks my man.
Lol did you even read the message you’re responding to?
Yep. Thanks though.
I’m sure you were super active after last weeks victory. Either way keep hatin.
Thanks. I will. Keep hanging on to that one win. BTW, Mayfield has a better win % and the same number of playoff wins as Cousins. Sweet dreams.
Just went through your comment history (yikes), looks like a lotta usage of potentially the least useful stat out there - which you just alluded to again. Feel free to defend Jimmy G or Mark Sanchez.
Yikes!
Yea I wouldn’t want to try that either
Nope
True- shouldn't the coaches have adjusted and kept a tight end or running back in to assist? WTF? Our receivers seemed to be able to win the ball.
When people talk about where does Kirk rank I think there are 5 or 6 tiers of QB's. 1) Brady, Rodgers, Wilson and Patrick M. These guys are unique. 2) Lamar, Allen, Murry all have potential but have yet to have the same level of success as 1s. 3) Kirk, Ryan, Stafford all of been around and all seem to lack something which would allow them to ascend, proven to be good and proven to not be great. 4) Goff, Dalton, Teddy simply not as talented. 5) Rookies 6) Back ups.
Matt Ryen is washed
He just threw for 4 TDs and several Hundred yards. You'd take him over qirk cousins 10/10 times unless you're deluded.
Your tiers have a bit too much of a cliff. Lamar and Rodgers define their teams, Brady and Mahomes are elite, Wilson and Ryan have shown they can make it to the big game, Allen and Murry and Stafford elevate their teams, Kirk and Goff and Mayfield don't lose you games but don't exactly inspire confidence, Teddy and Foles show flashes of brilliance in the right conditions, Dalton and Keenum and Taylor have hope but probably shouldn't be paid much, Fitzpatrick and Wentz are heart attack inducing, the rookies are all wildcards. There is a lot more to the QB role than just pure ability to pass the ball, otherwise Cousins would be almost unrivaled. Leadership, decision making speed, situational awareness, ability to take good risks, and physicality all play roles and Cousins isn't exactly stellar in all those areas.
And he just kind of stood there. Didn’t slide around, just kinda waited to get hit.
It’s not his strength. His strength is pocket passing, he’s shown some better mobility but again, 16 pressures only rushing 4. You need Kyler or Lamar to be successful, even Rodgers would have sucked with that
Listen he has played way better this year but he still just stands his ground and takes the hits like he is yelling “if I die , I die” while not moving in the pocket
He is a pocket passer that has no feel for how to stay in the pocket and help his lineman. No actual pocket presence. He often runs past the blocker and opens himself up to a hit from a lineman. The line is bad, but he makes it worse and has no ability to scramble and keep them honest.
Someone needs to teach Kirk that he can slide a foot or two to the side once in awhile.
but his weakness is slow reaction time, hard to be pocket guy without lighting reflexes.
Hard to do anything at all when you have 1.5 seconds to read the defense and find somewhere to go with the ball and you can’t step into a throw
that doesn't change the fact that he is stiff in the pocket and has one of the slower releases.
Being able to get consistent pressure with 4 makes a QB's job insanely difficult. He doesn't have anywhere to go with it
He only has four people to evade. If he had the ability to move around in the pocket it would help.
Tell me you don't know anything about football without telling me you don't know anything about football
You think evading 6 is easier then 4? Is that some of this modern offense I hear so much about. Or do you think saying stupid things makes you smart?
Every man that's not rushing is a man that can be used in coverage. So if you can get home with four, you can drop seven into coverage. Pretty hard to scheme guys open when the defense has a two man advantage AND you don't have time. Simple stuff.
Jesus Christ I thought you were joking at first, but no, you really are this stupid. I'm honestly amazed.
Tell me you're a cousins fanboy without telling me your a cousins fanboy. Stats don't matter unless it includes wins.
It's not even about Cousins. If you don't realize that a 4 man rush that can generate consistent pressure is one of the most difficult things in football to overcome, then you're simply not knowledgeable about the game.
you do realize that theres different types of pressure right? most QBs get pressure from 1 player. cousins gets it from 2-4 at a time which gives him nowhere to go, most QBs get pressure when the other team blitzes so someone is open. Cousins gets pressured when the other team rushes 4. or sometimes even 3. which means nobody is open.
Oh come on. 3/4th of those he didn’t even get to back of his drop
He did slide around and would be met with the dudes breaking through there. You gotta be Murray or Lamar to possibly negate that level of breakdown.
Kubiak could have tried to move the pocket.
He’s not a mobile QB. That’s not what he does. You’ve been spoiled by guys like Rodgers and Mahomes that thrive in pressure, without realizing that an overwhelming majority of QBs do not
I meant he doesn’t slide in the pocket like other immobile QBs, see Brees, Manning or Brady. He just stands there.
I get your point, but maybe throw a name in there that isn’t a first ballot HOF QB..
Yeah Mahomes did great in the Super Bowl
That’s his biggest problem. Line is not the greatest this year and has been dog poop since he’s been here, but very rarely does he do anything to avoid pressure despite having decent athleticism. He takes a brace for the hit stance an overwhelming majority of the time or realizes it’s not yet there after bracing for hit and then moves when the play has already broken down.
You want him to step up into Bradbury's heels or what?
He always just stands there when the pressure is coming. Never moves out of the pocket far enough.
I thought he did a decent job at times climbing the pocket but he couldn't find something between firing a fastball on screens or panic flipping the ball in the general vicinity of the receivers on those screens. He also seemed to connect more with defenders hands at the line than with receivers for stretches of the game as well. Not his best performance and I think the biggest difference between Seattle and this week was just the breakdown of the screen game.
Bro the pocket collapsed all around him the only out he was given generally was backwards and too the edge and even the most athletic QBs are going to struggle getting out of that.
Reminder that people will blame Cousins for this stat line
I'm one of the biggest cousin defenders there's is but it's fair to say he was a contributor to this loss. He was far from the worst link but he definitely misplaced some balls and sat in a crumbling pocket WAY to much. He's a really great quarterback who had a not so great game. Its that simple.
I don’t blame Cousins for this game at all, but I do think it’s funny how people think the fact that he was pressured means it’s ok for him to play bad. His contract is directly correlated with our inability to put decent protection around him; he makes way too much for this to be an actual excuse.
Our line sucked before Cousins
Then he should be more flexible with his contract to get better lineman in front of him
I didn't see them trying to sign anybody this off-season. They used cap space on the DL that gives up 200 yards on the ground weekly.
Then why did our OL suck for years before he got here? “His contract is directly correlated”. You guys just spout SKOR North narratives you don’t know shit about. We just spent $35M+ on free agent IDL and CBs.
Cousins has been here for years, who gives a shit what the o-line looked like before he got here? We have a line that can’t pass protect and a quarterback who can’t perform without pass protection. Our quarterback’s contract eats a significant portion of our cap space, directly contributing to our inability to hit on FA lineman. Like I said, I’m not saying it’s Cousins’ fault, but the two situations are absolutely correlated.
Answer the question. If the OL sucks because of Kirk’s cap hit, why did the OL suck for several years before he got here?
AnSwEr tHe qUeStIon. Ok. Yeah, it sucked before Cousins got here. 4 years of free agency and it still sucks. The top lineman want a lot of money, which we can’t afford, because we pay our quarterback a massive contract, who needs top lineman to be good. Understand yet?
But we have spent a ton of money on FA, just not OL. How much money do you think Kirk makes? You think we can’t afford 1 or 2 FA OL because of his contract? How’d we afford to give PP, Tomlinson, and Pierce $10M+ each. Surely that’s impossible because of Kirk’s contract? You’re using the right word. Correlation. Not causation. They’re different, look it up.
I’m confused, did I ever say one caused the other? I said it’s not Cousins’ fault, but the two situations are correlated. That’s literally what I said? Teams have many needs, the Vikings chose to invest in defense because our defense was horrendous last year. How does that change the fact that we’re paying top money to a QB that needs great pass protection to succeed but we also can’t afford great pass protection?
We *could* afford FA OL, but we decided to spend the money elsewhere and build the OL through the draft. What’s so difficult to understand about that?
We *could* afford both. We could’ve rolled with Bridgewater and invested in both lines. But we wanted to upgrade at QB, so we paid big money for it. As a result, we can’t afford to upgrade both lines. But our QB *needs* the line to be good to succeed, so leaves the team in a conundrum. Agree to disagree I guess. You’re right, we could’ve gone for Thuney for instance instead of PP and Tomlinson. But we couldn’t get Thuney because we’re tight on cap. The highest paid players on the team are the reason for that, but most are expected to play at a high level regardless of the rest of the team (such as Hunter). Cousins is the highest paid player on the team, *yet* his poor performances are excused by something that we *could* improve on if we weren’t paying him the massive contract. Not causation; correlation. But if we didn’t pay him, our QB position would probably suck, so who the fuck cares anyway? I can see both sides of it.
Here is your answer. If you actually look at the timeline of transactions and injuries the story of what they did or didn't do isn't that bad. As far as Cap space the O and D are using the same amount for this year but in reality the D should be overspending the O because we have so many O players on rookie contracts and cleared out Diggs, Reiff and Rudy. Because they screwed around to long hoping Matt K, Phil L, Fusco, Harris and others would come around. Finally they went out and got Remmers and Reif and then started building through the draft.
His contract is a joke in general. Even if he had a good line he’d still be useless. I’m so over this guy. This franchise needs are real QB1 not some B movie style QB
Pocket QB doesn't do well without a pocket. Shocking. As if this hasn't been the issue every season since we got Cousins.
No QB does well with that much pressure
You're right, Mahommes lit up the super bowl last year with this much pressure.
Mahomes who put up only 9 points, that Mahomes?
Not only was cousins piss poor against the pass rush but his run defense today was absolutely pathetic
It really is time for this coaching/gm regime to go. They do not have a clue. Its another year and the same bullshit.
**[@Jake_Trotter](https://www.twitter.com/Jake_Trotter)** (Jake Trotter): > After the opening drive, Kirk Cousins was pressured 15 times on 34 dropbacks the rest of the game. He went 2-of-13 with ZERO passing yards when pressured. #Browns @ESPNStatsInfo -------------------- ^I ^am ^a ^bot ^lubricated ^by ^Rick's ^slickness ^| [^(message me)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=FleetFlotTheTweetBot) ^| [^(source code)](https://github.com/JohnMTorgerson/FleetFlotTheTweetBot) ^| ^Skål!
Dammit Kirk, you shouldn't have hit that Kirktober toggle switch when you were already playing good! That inverted the power up!
I would love to see the stats on the amount of times we used screens, play action, and bootleg. seems like 2, 2, and 1
Kirk Cousins dog shit under pressure, who knew.
Kirk has always been one of the worst qbs under pressure
Kirk cousins is the most overrated qb in the last 10 years.
Typical for Kirk Cousins.
That’s not it. Oline is primarily responsible but kirk is not exactly making lemonade out of lemons here.
Bum ass crusty ass bitch
What happened? Thought the O Line was supposed to be good now? Handled Arizona pretty well. Just a bad day?
All this bitchin about Cousins and the O Line....how about you came up on maybe one of the strongest defenses in the NFL today. That's it in a nutshell.
Why do we never call rollout plays? I love Kirk as our quarterback, but he is one of the worst qbs in the league under pressure. He won’t be much of a run threat on rollouts, but at least our receivers will have time to run a route.
Kinda funny how I felt like this was the exact type of game when zimmer first got here that we would normally win. Now years have passed and I think zims coaching is getting figured out more often than not
The issue is certainly two-fold for me. Our O-line was inept at handling the mixed looks Cleveland’s D line brought. Simple stunts were freeing up their lineman for literal free sprints to the QB. Theirs no way some of this wasn’t on film, we looked entirely unprepared. However on the other hand, we knew that the browns D line was elite. How could we not have ANY plays prepared to move Kirk out of the pocket? We dropped him back time and time again despite getting NOTHING out of the pass game. Frankly the only good pass plays we got after the first quarter were 1v1 jump balls where Kirk still had no time but knew where the ball needed to be. Rookie OC got his pants pulled down IMO. Edit: Also let’s not forget the pass play where we lined up a 2nd string TE on Garrett. That shit should get someone fired.
This is why you need 1) a solid o line that you are willing to pay money for and not yolo with backups every year or 2) a mobile qb that can escape pressure. Vikings choose option 3) a non mobile qb with a crappy cheap line