Brian O’Neill was at a loss for words when reporters asked him about Kirk Cousins’ impact on the Minnesota Vikings in the middle of the season. It was Week 8. Minnesota had just beaten the Green Bay Packers 24-10 at Lambeau Field, their only win by multiple scores this season. The Packers had just lost their fourth-straight game, dropping to 2-5, but the Vikings might have been feeling worse in that moment.
Cousins had just thrown for 378 yards against the San Francisco 49ers on Monday Night Football. Suddenly, he left on a medical cart after tearing his Achilles on a non-contact play. Rookie Jaren Hall had entered the game in relief because backup Nick Mullens was dealing with a back injury. It looked like the Vikings had experienced their season’s high and low points in six days.
“I couldn’t really get words out because there was a lot of shock,” O’Neill said as he cleared out his locker for the offseason on Monday. “You didn’t know, but you knew it was bad. I think you’re able to formulate those thoughts as time goes on a little bit more than you were in the moment. I’ve shared those with him. I hope he knows how I feel about him. I tell him all the time. But, yeah, I love that guy.”
Cousins’ injury strangely came at the beginning of the high point in Minnesota’s season. They started 0-3 and beat the Carolina Panthers on the road in Week 4. But Justin Jefferson injured his hamstring in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs the following week. The Vikings looked lost without Jefferson in Chicago but escaped Soldier Field with a 19-13 win. However, a week later, Cousins had his best game of the year in primetime against the Niners, a Super Bowl favorite. He followed that up with an efficient 274-yard game in Green Bay before suffering his season-ending injury in the fourth quarter.
Nobody could have guessed what would happen next. Hall started the Week 9 game in Atlanta but suffered a concussion at the end of Minnesota’s second drive. After coming over in a trade four days earlier, Joshua Dobbs entered the game and led them to a 31-28 victory. He followed that up with his best performance of the year. Dobbs went 23/34 for 268 yards and a touchdown in a 27-19 win over the New Orleans Saints.
The Saints game was Minnesota’s fifth win in a row, but they lost six of their last seven games to finish the season. Their lone win was the 3-0 victory in Vegas. The common theme was turnovers. Dobbs didn’t turn the ball over against New Orleans, but he had three fumbles and took a safety in Atlanta. He fumbled three times and threw a pick in Denver, and threw four picks in the Vikings’ Week 12 loss to Chicago. Mullens threw four picks in the first Detroit Lions game and had eight in five games. Hall had a pick and fumbled twice in three games.
But Minnesota’s turnover issues predated Dobbs, Mullens, and Hall. They had nine turnovers in their first three games, all losses. They had 17 turnovers in their final seven games. The wins over New Orleans and the Las Vegas Raiders were the only games where they didn’t turn the ball over. The Vikings were 4-0 in games where they won the turnover battle, 2-0 when they tied it, and 1-10 when they lost the turnover battle. Turnovers defined their season.
We’ll never know what would have happened had Cousins left Lambeau Field healthy. Their next six opponents looked beatable: Atlanta, New Orleans, Denver, Chicago, Las Vegas, and the Cincinnati Bengals without Joe Burrow. How would he have fared against Detroit or the late-season Packers? We’ll never know. If we know anything about Vikings management, they’re not afraid of shaking things up. They won 13 games last year and cut popular veterans Adam Thielen, Eric Kendricks, and Dalvin Cook. Perhaps they move on from Cousins, 35, despite how well he played in the middle of the season.
“I don’t know that it is too different,” Cousins said when a reporter asked if his outlook on free agency was different than in 2018. “If anything I find myself really relinquishing it and just saying, ‘Let the Lord lead.’ He’s guided me this year. He hasn’t failed me yet. … Nothing has taught me more than this injury, of the importance of just letting go and trusting and seeing where things go.”
“He wasn’t the first-overall pick,” said O’Neill. “He’s not 6’8” and doesn’t run 4.2, but he maximizes 100% of everything he’s given. And that story is relatable for a lot of guys. Regardless of what everybody in the world, whatever they believe or whatever their purpose is, their moral compass or how they go about their life, their philosophy, I think everybody can look at Kirk and say whatever his is, he lives that fully 100% every day.”
Cousins doesn’t drive winning like Patrick Mahomes or Burrow. But he operates Kevin O’Connell’s offense efficiently and takes care of the ball. We learned Cousins’ value in his absence. He’s built a performance gap between himself and a typical backup, even though Washington drafted him the same year as Robert Griffin III. Cousins has leveraged his arm strength, accuracy, and film study to play into his 30s. But even he can’t cast the first stone. Cousins threw five interceptions and fumbled five times in Minnesota’s first five games. A year after wringing a victory out of every game they could, the Vikings gave up the ball too often, establishing a fault at the beginning of the season that they never fixed.
