Ricky J
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Kirk Cousins needs to lead the Vikings to a fourth-quarter win
If you are looking only at individual performances, then Kirk Cousins had the best season of any Vikings quarterback since 2009. However, when taking a closer look at the entire quarterback play for the team a slightly different picture emerges.
Cousins’ quarterback rating of 99.7 last season is just slightly better than the combined rating of 99.1 for Case Keenum and Sam Bradford from 2017. Cousins threw for 4,298 yards in 2018, the most since Brett Favre amassed 4,202 in 2009. However, it is only 179 yards more than the Vikings got from Bradford and Shaun Hill in 2016.
If 2018 was a mere speed bump or a short departure from making the postseason, then Cousins needs to play better in 2019. Sure, his stats were great, but there is the intangible of leading your team to a victory they had no business winning.
In seven seasons, Cousins has 12 game-winning drives, 11 of them after becoming the full-time starter for the Redskins in 2015. None of them came last season.
In two of his three seasons as the starter in Washington, Cousins led the Redskins to four game-winning drives. In 2017 that was good enough to lead the NFL. The other season he did it three times. The same year he had four game-winning drives, he was sacked 41 times for a league-high 342 yards.
So that fact he was under constant pressure last season while being sacked 40 times does not excuse him from winning a game when it counts and lead the Vikings to at least one game-winning drive.
He needs to deliver as he did in Washington, averaging 3.6 game-winning drives in three years as the starter. That is the difference between 8-8 or 9-7 and 11-5 or 12-4.
So Cousins has proven that he can lead a team to 4th quarter wins, yet this guy lays the lack of 4th quarter comeback wins for the Vikes in 2019 entirely at Cousin's feet. I don't suppose a kicker missing chip shot FGs to win games or any other stuff would have anything to do with it.
So much for a "closer look".
Cousins certainly did his job in the GB game where Carlson laid a golden egg 3 times.
Were there any other games Cousins brought us back but kicking game lost it?
I'm drawing a blank.
Point being Cousins is not a one man team. No one is. I remember the days when Culpepper would bring us back multiple times in the 4th quarter, and our sieve defense would just give the lead/game back. This was enough ammo for many though "Culpepper's a front runner" blah blah blah.
Point taken.
In Cousins defense, the oline was the sieve last year.
However, he did seem very indecisive late in the season. Shell shock perhaps.
If you were running for your life as much as he was, you might be shell shocked too. The offensive line needed to improve, which it has. The defense needed to be more consistent. The coaching needed to improve amd the run game needed to be improved. Effective pass plays and run plays needed to be mixed in. A quarterback will not be effective when the defense can just tee off on him, because nothing else is working.
And in the mean time Cousins has no choice but to keep his mouth shut, keep working and hopefully it'll all pay off soon. And he has as far as I can tell which makes him a pretty decent person in my book.
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