Kirk Cousins, Vikings, Riding Play-Action Passing To Promise Land

Cousins has seemingly soared to new heights, and play-action may be the airline that's taking him there.

Another week, another loss for the Washington Redskins. Despite Mother Nature's best efforts to level the playing field, the 49ers prevailed in a rain-saturated contest where neither team managed to reach the end-zone. Given the dominance San Francisco has shown to this point in the season, a nine-point loss is certainly not the worst outcome Washington could have faced. Although, the same can't be said for the bettors who had San Francisco covering at -9.5.

The good news for Washington is that Derrius Guice is on the brink of a return, with a possibility to practice as early as this week. The bad news is they yet again have to face one of the top tier teams in the league, as up next is Minnesota, and this time it's on a short week. As if that wasn't already enough, there will be the added tension of Kirk Cousins facing off against his former team for the first time.

Washington made a significant wager when they allowed Kirk Cousins to walk in free agency. It's not often that a starting caliber quarterback hits free agency in the prime of his career, but the Redskins decided that Cousins wouldn't live up to the price tag. It would seem that Minnesota disagreed. So how exactly has that worked out for the Vikings? So far this year, not too shabby.

Here we have a visualization of each team's Expected Points Added per Quarterback dropback, where the dots represent the average on the season. In case you couldn't tell, that's Kirk Cousins sitting in second place, just behind division rival Dak Prescott. Those lines around the points represent the standard errors of those averages. Basically, it's a measure of how much those averages might fluctuate. It's harder to tell from this visualization, but Cousins actually has the second highest standard error.

So what exactly does that mean? Generally speaking, it means that Cousins's dropbacks have had more variation in their results. The next diagram should hopefully depict this a little more clearly. In this, the X-axis represents the average EPA on all plays with negative EPA, while the Y-axis will show the average EPA on all plays with positive EPA. In essence, it depicts each team's average good play vs their average bad play.

The Vikings are the highest point on the graph. Basically what we're seeing is that when the Vikings have a successful pass play, it's a BIG-TIME success. But notice that they're middle-of-the-pack regarding the average negative play. This means that on any given dropback, there's a wider range of outcomes for Cousins and the Vikings, but recently, those outcomes have been skewed toward success.

So it begs the question, why has Cousins been so successful? Well, Cousins may have already given us the answer in the off-season. But let's take a look here.

In this chart, we're seeing what percentage of a quarterback's passes come via play action vs the EPA generated on play action passes. Yet again, we'll find Cousins in the upper right corner. The Vikings are running play action at one of the highest rates in the league, and Cousins is feasting on the opportunity.

Cousins has been known in the past for success with play action, but it would seem his game has gone to new levels, and the Vikings are smart to exploit it. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a healthy Dalvin Cook as a threat to run the ball. I'll note a few stats regarding him and the Vikings ground attack in The Stat Sheet below.

The Vikings offensive strategy may not be a well-kept secret, but as long as linebackers are ingrained with the mindset to stop the run, solid play action fakes will wreak havoc on defenses. With the explosiveness the Vikings have shown to this point, it would seem prudent for Washington and other defenses to prioritize stopping the aerial attack first, rather than the run. We'll get action earlier this week, so enjoy it, and maybe enjoy a stress-free Sunday. Below is The Stat Sheet and corresponding references for your consumption.