Kirk Cousins is walking into a familiar kind of mess, but Minnesota is betting he can handle it better than the quarterbacks who came before him.
The Vikings have already watched Carson Wentz make recent history for all the wrong reasons on Monday night, and the offensive line didn’t exactly help clean up the picture. Ed Oliver was a wrecking ball inside, piling up three hits among a game-high seven pressures. That came on the heels of a stretch in which Kyler Murray was also getting buried, with three or more sacks in four of his five full games.
Minnesota responded by fixing the quarterback situation without making a corresponding upgrade up front. That matters because offensive line play was a familiar excuse for Cousins’ frustration in his first run with the Vikings. Now he gets another crack at the same setup.
The encouraging part for Minnesota is that Cousins brings a different answer to pressure than Wentz or Murray. A lot of the damage those quarterbacks took was at least partly self-inflicted.
On Monday, Wentz held the ball for 3.44 seconds on pressured dropbacks, which was middle of the pack across the league and slower than he’d been in his two wins. Murray was even worse, hanging onto it for an average of 4.04 seconds when the rush got home.
Cousins doesn’t play that game. He gets the ball out quickly even when bodies are closing in, and only Jordan Love and Matthew Stafford release it faster than Cousins’ 3.03-second average under pressure.
Part of that is style - Cousins simply doesn’t have Murray’s mobility - but not all of it. Murray also wasn’t able to use his legs enough to extend plays and create downfield chances.
The catch is that once Cousins does release the ball under pressure, the results haven’t been pretty. His numbers in those situations this season are almost right next to Murray’s:
Cousins under pressure: 42 for 99, 5.5 yards per attempt, 3 TD/5 INT, 49.5 QB Rating
Murray under pressure: 18 for 43, 5.3 yards per attempt, 1 TD/2 INT, 47.6 QB Rating
So the line has to do its part. For the most part, it has.
PFF has Minnesota ninth in pass-blocking, a clear step up from the Las Vegas Raiders at 28th. That gives Cousins a better chance to work from clean pockets, which is where he’s most comfortable.
There are real pieces there, too. Brian O’Neill is 12th among linemen with an 80.8 grade, and Christian Darrisaw, while not back to his pre-injury level, is still solid. Blake Brandel has been holding up at center, and Joe Huber has filled in when needed.
The concern is whether one weak spot can drag the whole thing down. Will Fries was a major problem on Monday night, earning his fifth sub-50.0 PFF pass-blocking grade in eight games this year. One shaky spot can sometimes be hidden in a five-man unit, but that gets harder to ignore when the team paid Fries to be part of the solution.
That’s the reality of today’s NFL, where defenses keep finding the fastest path to the quarterback through the guards and center. Offenses have had to adapt, and Fries was supposed to help Minnesota do exactly that. Instead, the plan is looking shaky, and Cousins’ heavy, 38-year-old feet could make the issue even more noticeable.
Still, Nolan Teasley and Kevin O’Connell appear to believe this can be managed with Cousins in place. If they didn’t, they probably would have gone looking for another answer to Fries’ struggles.
If they’re right, Cousins should benefit from the same infrastructure J.J. McCarthy, Murray, and Wentz were supposed to use.
If they’re wrong, he could be the next quarterback tossed into the bin during this post-Sam Darnold Era.
In Other News...
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The Vikings are heading into Green Bay with the injury report still carrying real weight, and the concern only grows when you look at who is not taking part. Blake Cashman, T.J. Hockenson, Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins, Jauan Jennings, Kyler Murray and Kyle Van Noy were all listed as non-participants, leaving Minnesota to manage a week that already had a thin margin for error.
The tight end spot remains the clearest pressure point for the offense, especially with Josh Oliver out for the season and no late trade-deadline help arriving to ease the load. Kirk Cousins is expected to start at quarterback, but the Vikings will need the rest of the roster to hold up around him if they are going to navigate a division trip with this many moving parts. [Read more 🡒]
Kirk Cousins Is Already Reclaiming Control Of The Vikings Offense
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Vikings Fans Just Saw The Concern With J.J. McCarthy Under Pressure
J.J. McCarthy gave the Giants enough to keep things interesting for most of the afternoon against Washington, completing 23 of 36 passes for 293 yards with a touchdown and an interception. For Minnesota fans still following his development, the bigger takeaway was less about the box score and more about how the game tightened when the Commanders started bringing more pressure after halftime.
In the final minute, McCarthy was forced into a series of hurried decisions, and the stress of the moment showed up in the worst possible way. Washingtons increased blitzing helped speed up his process and exposed how much more comfortable he looked when the pocket was cleaner, leaving a late interception to close the door and raise the same old question about how he handles pressure when the game is on the line. [Read more 🡒]