This year’s Super Bowl was extra frustrating to watch as a Minnesota Vikings fan. I was experiencing flashbacks to Kirk Cousins getting hit only moments after receiving Garrett Bradbury’s snaps. Everybody knows Cousins isn’t nearly as mobile as the wunderkind Patrick Mahomes, but that makes a sturdy offensive line that much more valuable. NFL games are won and lost in the trenches, and Vikings fans have seen it firsthand since Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman took over the team.
Mahomes took 37 pressures on 61 drop backs per PFF, good for 61% of his passing snaps Sunday. That was more than any other quarterback in Super Bowl history, which is dreadful, but the reason it was so bad was due to a late season-ending injury to Eric Fisher, one of the best left tackles in the NFL. For comparison, PFF showed that the Vikings allowed 56% of Cousins’ drop backs to be pressured in the Week Three game against the Tennessee Titans, 48% Week Four against the Houston Texans, 43% Week 11 against the Dallas Cowboys, and 51% Week 15 against the Chicago Bears.
In fact, there were only two games all year where Cousins had under a 25% pressure rate — the two games against the Green Bay Packers.
None of those games were quite up to 61%, but many were close. Kansas City had no choice but to throw under pressure late in the game, long after it was too late to come back, leading to even more stress on Mahomes once the game got out of hand.
One of the biggest contributors to the pressure on Cousins was Dakota Dozier. Dozier was fourth in the NFL with 46 pressures allowed all season. Bradbury and Brian O’Neill were also in the top 50 for pressures allowed with 29 and 28 respectively. Fortunately, Riley Reiff and Ezra Cleveland were solid all year, although Cleveland didn’t play nearly enough snaps to gather the same amount of pressures as the others anyway.
So it’s no surprise the Vikings underperformed in 2020. If Mahomes couldn’t get it done with a subpar line, I don’t know what quarterback could.
All the arguments that Cousins isn’t mobile enough are valid, but I don’t think that’s an issue that is holding the Vikings back. It’s not like a pocket quarterback doesn’t work in today’s NFL; we just saw a statue of a quarterback in the league win the Super Bowl. It’s clear that the team can work with Cousins, but they have to bolster the offensive line.
If the Vikings can upgrade their left guard position they will see a meaningful improvement. A line with Reiff, a new guard, Bradbury, Cleveland, and O’Neill would be a huge improvement, especially with the emergence of Dalvin Cook this year helping to move the focus to the run — a category the Vikings line wasn’t too bad in.
It’s no surprise they played poorly against arguably the best defensive front, especially considering the Chiefs lost one of the best tackles in the NFL, but it did surprise many people that even Mahomes couldn’t get it done. Sure, he has wheels, but that’s why it’s not time to give up on Cousins.
If the best young quarterback in the league can’t carry the team when he is getting pressured over half of his drop backs, why is Cousins getting flak when he deals with it most of the season? It’s silly to think the upgrade to Deshaun Watson or downgrade to Jimmy Garoppolo would immediately make the team a Super Bowl contender when the line is as bad as it is now.
It’s more than likely the Vikings are going to keep Cousins for the remainder of his contract. Why else would they have extended him? That means their best chance at breaking through is by upgrading the o-line. They need to find a piece that elevates the offensive line to a mediocre level, at least, if they are sticking it out with Cousins. If Fisher affected the Chiefs’ line that much by missing time, maybe the right player would fix the Vikings’ line.
With that investment, Cousins and the team are going to be able to compete with any team. And what is the point of going after Cousins and giving him all that money if he won’t even get a chance to really show what he is capable of?
