After his first two seasons with the Vikings, Kirk Cousins received an extension from the team, and it didn’t take long before the naysayers chimed in.
Cousins is a polarizing figure among the Minnesota fanbase, due to his large contract and his inconsistent play. Bleacher Report recently ranked the Vikings extending Cousins as one of the worst offseason moves of 2020.
Look, I know. Cousins has been up and down in his time with the Vikings, especially in prime time. However, the new contract was a move Minnesota had to make — on multiple levels.
Here are the key points:
His production
Statistically speaking, Cousins has been solid for the Vikings. He threw for over 4,000 yards in his first season with the team, though he did look less than stellar in important games, such as the ones against Seattle and Chicago, the last of which led to Minnesota finishing 8-7-1 and missing the playoffs.
Simple passing yards and touchdown passes might tell you different, but Cousins improved in his second year with the team. Kevin Stefanski and Co. decided to emphasize Cousins’ strengths as a passer: rolling out and making something happen off play-action passes.
According to Pro Football Focus, Cousins was the top-ranked quarterback in play-action passes and designed roll outs. A system change led to him improving his quarterback rating from 99.7 to 107.4.
The reason Cousins’ passing yards and touchdowns dropped in year two is because the team was asking less of him. Cousins had 606 pass attempts in 2018, compared to 444 the following year.
The Vikings stopped asking him to drop back so much, and not only did he get better, but the team did, too.
Cousins had a higher percentage of touchdowns thrown, the Vikings offense looked markedly different with running back Dalvin Cook’s career year, and Minnesota went 10-6 in the regular season, winning its first playoff game, then getting knocked out.
Maybe the fans who hate Cousins have forgotten about Christian Ponder, or maybe they’re too critical of a quarterback who’s not as good as Patrick Mahomes. Either way, Cousins is one of the better passers in the league, and it doesn’t make sense to let him walk down the road just because he’s not elite.
The quarterback market
When the news first came out that Cousins received an extension from the Vikings, one of the biggest complaints was the money,
NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport said the deal was two new years, worth $66 million. So three years in total for $96 million.
That’s a lot of money, sure, but when you zoom out and look at what a quarterback of Cousins’ caliber earns, it wasn’t exactly an overpay.
The four quarterbacks ahead of Cousins — in terms of average pay per year — are the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson, Steelers’ Ben Roethlisberger, the Rams’ Jared Goff and the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers.
Personally, I think Wilson and Rodgers are both better, but I’m not sure I’d rather have Goff over Cousins on any given game, and I think Roethlisberger, while he could definitely still have something left in the tank, is risky to hypothetically value over Cousins due to him being 38 years old. So only two quarterbacks ahead of Cousins for salary are actually better.
Ryan Tannehill earned an extension this offseason, too. He has a yearly average of $29.5 million. Cousins per year rate is $33 million. Wouldn’t you rather have Cousins for under four million more per year than Tannehill?
Tannehill and Cousins are examples of players who can take your team pretty deep into the playoffs, but they aren’t going to necessarily win games when everyone else isn’t playing well. Some quarterbacks can will a team in that way, but Minnesota can’t wait around for one of those players to walk through the door. A team has to lock down a quarterback like Cousins, with a fair market value, and build the rest of the roster around him.
The team needed a lesser salary cap hit for 2020
Cousins called the contract extension a win-win earlier this offseason.
That’s because Cousins can stay in Minnesota and lessen the cap hit for 2020. Tom Pelissero of NFL.com first reported the deal cleared $10 million in 2020 cap space. His cap number for 2020 was just $21 million.
That helped the Vikings sign defensive tackle Michael Pierce, and it’s hard to sign all the draftees they took if they had limited cap space.
Cousins earned a new deal with his play, and helped the Vikings in the short-term by taking a relatively low cap hit for 2020. Overall, it was a good move, by the front office, for Kirk Cousins and for the betterment of the team.
