The public messaging from Stefon Diggs to Kirk Cousins — and vice versa — in the wake up Diggs’ trade to the Buffalo Bills has been nothing but cordial.
Diggs’ first-person piece on the Players’ Tribune spoke of his “appreciation and respect” for Cousins as a quarterback and teammate. Cousins returned the favor in a conference call on Tuesday, complimenting his favorite target from 2019 while conceding “it became apparent that [Diggs] wanted to play elsewhere.”
“I think my text message to him said something along the lines of, ‘You’re as good as any receiver I’ve ever played with,’” Cousins told reporters. “That includes some names like Adam Thielen, DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon. … He’s elite. I just wanted to affirm him, and thank him. It sounds cliché but I’m as good as a quarterback as the guys around me. Specifically, as the people I have to throw to. There were a lot of games where his talent makes an enormous difference.”
With Diggs departing in exchange for four draft picks, including an extra first-rounder on April 23, the Minnesota Vikings will have to go about exploring ways to replace one of the league’s most dynamic talents. One who paired up with Cousins for 34 connections of 20 or more yards and 15 touchdowns since Cousins arrived in 2018.
“The guys who have those movement skills don’t grow on trees,” Cousins said.
Once the dust settles on the NFL Draft, the Vikings will have a better idea of the ammo they’ll possess to go about replacing Diggs. From jump-ball threats to speedsters to yards-after-catch phenoms, the incoming pass-catcher class has assets for every type of offense. Some are calling it one of the deepest of all-time.
As the roster sits currently, though, the Vikings have to envision a world where they simply don’t replace Diggs. Instead, they’ll double down on Gary Kubiak‘s scheme that relies on multiple tight ends, a fullback and a sturdy run game to get the job done, as they did last season when Thielen injured his hamstring in Week 7 and was scarcely heard from for the rest of the regular season. The Vikings kept winning games, even though Cousins’ passer rating and yards per attempt dropped with Thielen out of the lineup.
“You can find other ways to do things,” Cousins said. “I think one great example is when we lost Adam last year for six or seven weeks, you watched our offense evolve and suddenly three tight ends were in the game quite a bit. Certainly two tight ends quite a bit. We ran the ball effectively. And we did rely on Stefon quite a bit as kind of the one receiver, if you will. That was after Chad Beebe had gotten hurt, so a lot of things had changed. You have to be ready to evolve.”
A hallmark of Cousins’ career has been constantly-changing offensive coordinators, from Sean McVay to Matt Cavanaugh to John DeFilippo to Kevin Stefanksi. He’ll get some semblance of continuity next year with Kubiak accepting the play-calling headset from Stefanski, who departed to be the new Cleveland Browns head coach. As an influential consultant, Kubiak instilled an offense in 2019 that elicited Cousins’ best season as a pro, so any changes amidst the coordinator shakeup will be subtle. Rick Dennison, a key component in the zone-blocking scheme, also remains on board as the offensive line coach, and four of five starters on the offensive line are slated to return.
Aside from Diggs, there is great offensive continuity. So can the tried and true Kubiak scheme overshadow the loss of, as Cousins said, the best receiver with whom he’s played?
“I think there’s a variety of areas we can improve, even some of the areas where we were really good on offense,” Cousins said. “I think we can take another step. I think it helps to have had a year with Coach Kubiak in that system, Coach Dennison as the O-line coach and really putting together our run game. There was a bit of figuring it out last year and feeling one another out during the offseason of, ‘What is this going to look like?’ and ‘How do we do things?’ I’d like to think that, in a way, this is Year 2, and as a result, we can take a step forward, just because we’re more familiar with the goals and the plan and what it should look like.”
Cousins mentioned Beebe, lost in Week 3 last year to injury, and Tajae Sharpe, acquired in free agency from the Tennessee Titans, as possible receivers to be relied upon in 2020. Help will no doubt be on the way via the draft, but rookies can be unpredictable, too, as the Vikings can attest from their experience with Laquon Treadwell and Cordarrelle Patterson.
Regardless of how heavy-set the Vikings plan to be with their run-first offense, it’s hard to say Diggs wouldn’t have played a significant role this year. He was a perfect target for Cousins’ deep ball, and an optimal diversion to keep defenses from honing in on Dalvin Cook. It will long be asked why the Vikings weren’t able to make it work with their disgruntled wideout. Cousins, on Tuesday, didn’t have an answer.
“I think that’s probably more a question for Stefon to fully understand the why behind it,” Cousins said, “but probably really not for me to say.”
