![]() In 2019, it was a slow start and hot middle of the season. In 2018 he started hot and ended cold as well. Through eight games in 2017, his rating was 102.0 and then he managed just an 85.8 rating the rest of the way. This exact pattern is not followed through every season of Cousins’s career but there’s always been some version of it. More than anything, his early struggles and eventual growth suggest that being a diligent fella pays off. That rate has surprisingly remained constant through the rest of his starting career. He dropped from 4.8% of his throws being “turnover-worthy” by PFF standards to 3.2% in 2015. That’s generally a tough thing to fix, yet in 2015, reducing turnover-worthy plays made all the difference in Cousins emerging as an NFL starter. Cousins did average 8.4 yards per attempt and suffered from an unfortunate string of drops (receivers dropped 12% of his passes) but his turnover-worthy play rate was seventh highest in the NFL among QBs with at least 100 drop backs. You would need a microscope to find the flickers in his 2014 season. For comparison’s sake, those grades would be lower than Drew Lock’s last year and about on par with Nick Mullens.Įven if it was a small sample size early on, few QBs who play that way ever find themselves in a position to become a full-time starter, much less have an eventual jump to being in the top half of the league consistently. He graded well by PFF standards in 58 attempts as a rookie and then looked very much like a replacement-level QB in 20, scoring a 51.4 (out of 100) and 58.1 in those years, respectively. Over his first three seasons, Cousins won just two of nine starts, threw 18 touchdowns and 19 interceptions and produced a 77.5 rating. Because nowadays looking back, it would just be unacceptable to myself, allowing myself to play that way or make that read or make that throw or that decision.” I can’t believe they were patient with me. “I can’t believe that the coaches didn’t just cut me when I did that and made that mistake. “I’ve watched myself in ’12 and ’13-14 and think, ‘Man, I’m such a better quarterback now,’” he said. One comment Cousins made about his film analysis pertaining to his early years as an NFL quarterback is absolutely backed up by the stats: Washington had to be patient with him because there was more bad than good. Let’s have a look year by year at some of the in-depth stats that can point us toward where he’s changed and what trends might point us toward what’s to come… Pre-2015 So what other way could we investigate the course of Cousins’s history to learn about his future? Well, through the numbers. But last year, I did a similar piece and talked with Cousins about his first career start and how far he’s come. My first inclination when I heard Cousins’s comments was to consider repeating an abridged version of the exercise - to watch games from each season and write about them. “So just the process of then learning those players and saying, ‘OK’ and understanding that you always have to be aware of what your teammates do well and try to put them in those positions to be successful.” “You realize that the way Pierre Garcon ran a route or Desean Jackson ran a route, that affects you in the way you play and the way you think, and then you come to a new team and you’re trying to tell Adam Thielen to run a route that way, and he’s saying, ‘No, I don’t do it that way,’” Cousins said. “I think being self-led and being tough on yourself, too, can really help you as you watch tape that you put out there.”Ĭousins also explained that watching the tape as a whole made him think more about getting the most out of his teammates and adapting how he plays to what they do best. “Evaluation certainly comes from your coaches, day-in and day-out, but there’s also got to be an ability to self-evaluate and say, ‘I like what I’m doing there keep doing that,’ or, ‘That’s not good enough - I want to improve that,’” Cousins said. ![]() He set himself up with the film at his house so he could study it without going to the facility. The Vikings’ QB explained that he wanted to “study, create cutups and really build some volume” that he could reference going forward. “That time looking at tape through the winter and spring, and even now as I go home through the summer after next week, I do think that it’s helpful now to see what has worked in the past, what I want to make as a staple for myself as I move forward…also where I have improved and where I need to improve,” Cousins said. If Packers president Mark Murphy can describe Aaron Rodgers is a “complicated fella,” we could call Kirk Cousins a diligent fella.Ĭousins has been known to seek out every possible edge, from working with the Vikings’ analytics folks to hiring a mental coach to keeping his notes from every game and on and on.Ĭousins revealed this week that this year’s offseason project was to watch back his entire career on film.
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