By all accounts, Kirk Cousins had a very good game on Sunday in the Minnesota Vikings’ 29-22 win over the Chicago Bears. There is a lot of praise to go around, and rightly so. Kevin O’Connell trusted Cousins with the levers of the offense en route to a 21-3 lead early in the game. Hear Cousins talk about it, however, and you get a sense of disappointment. Despite the first 4-1 start Cousins has ever enjoyed, he has consistently called out ways he can improve. That’s a normal habit for NFL players, always looking for little things they can do to optimize their game.
Of course, Cousins can’t get too specific on the podium. He’ll drape his own thoughts in enough vaguery, so he’s not doing his next opponent’s scouting work for them. But as familiar as we, as Vikings fans, are with this season, we can find exactly what he’s talking about. As it turns out, it’s a pretty interesting pattern.
Cousins alluded to a particular problem that has cropped up a lot this year. After Sunday’s game, he explained the day’s interception:
Let’s look into the plays Cousins is talking about. Each of these involves some kind of high-low read. For those unaware, that just means there is a deep (or intermediate) route and a “flat” route that’s more shallow. If you get the right coverage, you’ll have the cornerback in conflict. Either he sinks deep, leaving a receiver underneath with lots of room to work, or he covers the flat, leaving an uncovered man deep on the sideline.
Here’s an example from the Vikings’ first offensive snap of the season. Watch the cornerback, Jaire Alexander — he sinks deep, so the ball goes to Johnny Mundt underneath with enough space to turn upfield and move the chains.
So what do you do if you’re the cornerback in this situation? The goal is to “midpoint” the two responsibilities. If you can, drop deep enough to discourage the long throw while still staying close enough to the short throw to drive on it and make a play. This is difficult to do and grows more difficult as the play wears on. As the play develops, it will eventually become impossible as the two routes get too far apart. The cornerback will have to declare his intentions.
Keep that in mind as we go through several examples. The first is not exactly the same read, but it affected Cousins’ process. The trouble started with this interception by Tyrann Mathieu in London. There’s a lot that Cousins has to go through, which causes a late throw (and Smith appears to misplay the leverage, making matters worse).
If I had to guess, the conversation on the sideline would be about how long all of that took. From one read to the next to the double-clutch to the actual throw, Mathieu had all the time in the world to identify the throw, position himself far enough away to bait the throw, then break on it. Of course, if Irv Smith messed up his route — that’s a bigger note — but Cousins sped up his process notably in the throws that followed.
Cousins mentioned “taking the flat” a couple of times in this game when describing his interception. Here are those plays.
The first is fairly understandable. On third-and-one, Cousins targets Mundt for a would-be first down. Mundt drops it, but Cousins notes that Adam Thielen was open for a touchdown.
While there’s nothing wrong with ensuring the chains move on third down (assuming the receiver doesn’t commit an egregious drop), there was an opportunity for something more. Considering how aggressively defenders have to play in short yardage, that may be the perfect opportunity to throw a little deeper if Cousins wanted to play it greedily. Instead of reading the corner, Cousins rushed to the completion.
Next, a more pure example. On first-and-10 following a fumble recovery, Cousins finds a low route to Jefferson as K.J. Osborn finds space deeper. This is the one Cousins said he’d love to pump fake to open up, but instead, he took the completion for no gain.
This puts the high-low read’s rules to the test. What counts as a low read, or a high read? Does Osborn count as open when Paulson Adebo starts to widen instead of deepen? How long should Cousins hold the ball to open this up? Whatever the answer to that is, it’s probably longer than he did hold it.
Finally, one where Cousins admits he was fooled into thinking the cornerback was sinking deep. Marshon Lattimore midpointed well, but his heels never crossed the one-yard line. Once Lattimore squared his shoulders, his ability to make any play on a throw to the back of the end zone was doomed. Cousins didn’t realize this until too late.
Moving on to the Bears game, Cousins mentioned “one to Irv” that was open that he missed. Again, the corner midpoints the high-low concept well, and the ball is thrown before Smith gets deep enough to pull that corner off of the flat.
That leads us to the interception in question, a first-and-10. Perhaps frustrated with all of these missed opportunities, Cousins extends the play at the wrong moment. He runs to find a throwing lane to the outside of Al-Quadin Muhammad. then tries to lead Thielen. Problem was, Kindle Vildor had not yet driven on C.J. Ham in the flat. He kept getting more and more depth, declaring his coverage deep. This was a great opportunity for Ham to set up a second-and-short, maybe even move the chains, but Cousins forced it.
So what’s the note here? It’s one thing to point out plays that went wrong, but what about the actual solution? There are a few possible answers here, and it will be interesting to see which the Vikings choose. Cousins could try to hold the ball more on these bootlegs if possible, extending plays and forcing cornerbacks to declare their coverage. He actually suggested one for himself — pump-faking the flat route to lure the corner underneath before firing to the deeper route. The Vikings could also adjust these plays schematically to space them out more horizontally or start throwing them to a shiftier target like Dalvin Cook.
Personally, I don’t think this is so unsolvable as to necessitate a change in scheme or personnel usage. Cousins has already identified the solution: He needs to stop letting failed plays affect future opportunities. If he can, in his own words, approach these reads “in a vacuum,” he can render his opponent’s tape study useless. As it is now, opponents have found a weakness. Until you punish them, they’ll just keep exploiting it.
But that can be as much a boon as it is a hindrance. If corners feel they can confidently deepen, they’ll leave increasingly more room underneath. We already saw Cousins take advantage of that early against the Bears. Perhaps the Miami Dolphins will expose themselves to the same production. If Cousins were so inclined, he could use a pump fake and generate an explosive play in a big moment. Or this could plague him for months. Either way, it’s something to watch.
