Vikings PFF grades: Cousins, Jefferson rise in crowd of mediocrity

Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson posted their best grades of the season.
Vikings PFF grades: Cousins, Jefferson rise in crowd of mediocrity
Vikings PFF grades: Cousins, Jefferson rise in crowd of mediocrity /

The report card from the Vikings-Lions game is in and it'll be a shock to no one who watched the game that Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson were excellent and the defense is going to need to spend extra time with a tutor. 

Cousins nearly aced the test with a 91.5 grade from Pro Football Focus. That's his best score of the season and the fourth-highest of his career. You have to go back to Weeks 6 and 7 of the 2019 season to find better scores for Cousins. 

Cousins threw for 425 yards on 31-of-41 passing and he wasn't intercepted. When under pressure he was 11-of-13 for 217 yards. That's a big-time performance. 

Jefferson scored a 91.1. That equals his 91.1 grades from earlier this season against the Bills and Packers. He set the Vikings' regular season record with 223 receiving yards in the game and is on pace to finish with 1,961 yards, which would be three shy of the NFL record set by Calvin Johnson during the 2012 season. 

Who did Jefferson do his damage against? He got Mike Hughes four times for 76 yards, Jerry Jacobs twice for 53 yards, Amani Oruwariye twice for 51 yards, Deshon Elliott once for 20 yards, and Jeff Okudah and Anthony Pittman once each for 10 yards. 

What's incredible is that Cousins and Jefferson were dominant despite the offensive line doing very little to help. Without Christian Darrisaw (concussion) and Garrett Bradbury (back), the offensive line was down two starters and the five guys up front didn't post very impressive grades. 

  • LT: Blake Brandel – 49.1
  • LG: Ezra Cleveland – 54.9
  • C: Austin Schlottman – 53.5
  • RG: Ed Ingram – 53.1
  • RT: Brian O'Neill – 74.4

Cousins was pressured 16 times. More than half were the fault of Schlottman (5) and Ingram (4). 

The defense was credited with 14 pressures in the game, but they didn't sack Jared Goff at all and they only hit him three times. Za'Darius Smith generated six pressures, Danielle Hunter, Harrison Phillips and James Lynch each had two pressures. 

The two lowest defensive grades went to cornerback Cameron Dantzler (37.6) and safety Camryn Bynum (38.9). 


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Joe Nelson
JOE NELSON

Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen.  His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011.  Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play.  Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers.  Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.