Coller: The Kirk Cousins era in Minnesota is over
So much of Minnesota Vikings history is defined by two words and a question mark: “What if?” But as Kirk Cousins leaves, agreeing to a four-year contract with the Atlanta Falcons on Monday, we can look back at the last six years of Cousins in Minnesota with a different pair of words on our minds: “If only…”
The first stanza of Cousins’ Viking tenure was the Super Bowl or Bust years of 2018 and 2019. With just one playoff win between the two seasons coming off an NFC Championship appearance we were left wondering what would have happened if only the Vikings had hired a different offensive coordinator in 2018. If only general manager Rick Spielman had given Cousins competent interior offensive line play. If only they landed a different matchup in the 2019 playoffs rather than going to San Francisco in the divisional round. If only Stefon Diggs had been a touch happier or Mike Zimmer a shade less cantankerous and obsessed with the running game.
The 2020 and 2021 seasons were a separate beast. A crumbling roster and delusional franchise thinking it could still compete for a title as it slid down the NFL’s slippery mountain. In 2020 the Vikings extended Cousins despite the fact that a significant portion of their roster was crumbling. If only they had moved on then and looked to the draft (which featured five QBs who ultimately became quality starters).
The Vikings scrambled to remain in win-now mode in order to justify the Cousins contract but their attempts to reconstruct the depleted defense with draft picks like Cam Dantzler and Jeff Gladney and signings like Michael Pierce, Bashaud Breeland and Sheldon Richardson (the second time) were unsuccessful. If only they had found the next Xavier Rhodes, Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen.
If only COVID never existed then it wouldn’t have driven a wedge between Cousins and his head coach. It wouldn’t have caused him to miss a key game in Green Bay that held Zimmer’s fate in its hands either.
The final section of Cousins’ tenure, 2022 and 2023, left us to wonder how it would have gone if only Kevin O’Connell had been his coach the whole time. If only O’Connell had fired Ed Donatell midway through 2022 as the defense was giving up 400 yard games every week. If only O’Connell called for a better play on fourth-and-8 against the Giants and if only Cousins threw it deep to Justin Jefferson rather than underneath to TJ Hockenson.
If only Cousins didn’t pop his Achilles just as he was playing the best football of the season in 2023.
Fleeting moments of hope and bursts of excitement were abound over the last six years but they were always followed by crushing disappointment. An amazing performance by Cousins in Week 2 of 2018 against Green Bay would have made you believe he was on his way to an MVP and then he got strip-sacked en route to a stunning blowout loss against Buffalo the following week.
In 2019, he tossed a brilliant pass to Kyle Rudolph to beat the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome and then followed that up with 172 yards passing vs. the 49ers.
In 2022, an all-timer against the Bills came right before a total meltdown versus Dallas. The largest comeback in history vs. Indy quickly turned into a disaster in Green Bay.
The difficult thing to reckon with as Cousins heads to different pastures is that he outperformed expectations on an individual level. He played better in Minnesota than he did in Washington and it’s not particularly close. Cousins went 50-37-1 as a Viking after only winning 26 of 57 games in Washington. His career QB rating was eight points higher in purple than burgundy, his touchdown percentage is higher, his interception percentage is lower, his PFF grades were largely higher and he made the Pro Bowl more often.
How do we wrap our heads around the fact that Cousins was good and the overall results of the last six years were a disaster versus expectations? If you told 10,000 Vikings fans on the day they signed Cousins that they would never win a Divisional Round game during his six-year tenure, none of the 10,000 would check to see if he had a good QB rating before every one of them called it a failure.
He consistently performed at a level that made you believe the Vikings were only one step away. One guard. A little bit better defense. A little bit better coaching. He was always good enough to believe that somebody else let the franchise down when they missed the playoffs or got eliminated in short order.
He was just good enough to keep his team in every one-score game but never good enough to blow teams out. And then it was always something/someone else — a bad flag, a missed field goal, botched game management — that caused them to lose.
It’s worth noting here that only Derek Carr threw for more yards when losing from 2018-2023 and nobody threw more touchdowns.
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Despite the fact that the team didn’t get as far as they expected when he was brought to Minnesota there is still a feeling of being sorry to see him go just as he was getting comfortable in his own skin. For whatever reason the Netflix series didn’t just change his perception, it also seemed to change his confidence. Maybe it’s because he realized that he can be criticized and respected at the same time. Or that he felt more understood after showing the world how much it takes to be him. Most QBs fail miserably, after all. We forget how unbelievably hard the position is when we take his accurate passes for granted.
He won the Korey Stringer Good Guy Award in 2023. He was as open as you will ever hear an athlete when describing how he felt about his contract situation and what happened on the day he went down for the season. By the end of the year he was leading the SKOL chant with his shirt off. Who woulda thunk it?
Under O’Connell we saw Cousins’ teammates galvanize around him in ways they did not with Zimmer in place. They embraced his dad vibes and had a grand time with Kirk-o Chainz. They believed in him as he led them to eight fourth-quarter comebacks. When he got hurt Brian O’Neill couldn’t speak at his locker in Lambeau because he was so overwhelmed with emotion.
If only he had gotten the same buy-in during those first two years when the roster was good enough to win.
On the Purple Insider podcast, SumerSports’ Eric Eager said that he felt Cousins would ultimately end up in the Vikings Ring of Honor. The reaction in the comment section was not so keen about that idea but he finishes his career in Minnesota third in team history in wins, third in yards, second in touchdowns and No. 1 in QB rating.
Maybe the way he’s remembered in Minnesota will depend on what happens next. Alex Smith went 50-26 as a Kansas City Chief but he’s most well known for being the guy that was kicked to the curb to make room for Patrick Mahomes. Conversely, teams like the Bears or Jets would have killed to have quarterback play like that of Cousins or Smith throughout all their failed draft picks.
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If the Vikings find their next QB1 and compete for years to come then the era becomes a footnote between Case Keenum’s randomly magic run and the ever-elusive Franchise Quarterback. If the Vikings fail to find their guy, we may be reminiscing about that 2019 playoff win or the comeback against Buffalo a lot more than expected.
But Cousins’ exit opens up a new door of hope for Vikings fans. For so long they have waited and dreamed of escaping the purgatory that has plagued the franchise for decades. There are no guarantees that the next QB will be better than Cousins or take the team to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 70s but the veteran QB making way for the next quarterback seems to make it feel possible.
Now the options are endless. The real task begins for the Vikings’ brass to find the next quarterback. If only they can find that guy.
