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).