The Minnesota Vikings Have a Kirk Cousins Problem

Thus far this season, the Minnesota Vikings have paid quarterback Kirk Cousins approximately $7.3 million. And regardless of how he performs, Cousins will continue to earn about $1.8 million per week for the remainder of this season and all of next season. 

Do the math and Cousins made about $3 million per win during a remarkably disappointing debut season in Minnesota. This year, he's made about $2.4 million per touchdown pass. 

He has three of those through four games. His team is 2-2 this year, 10-9-1 since it handed the former Washington Redskin a fully guaranteed three-year, $84 million deal in the 2018 offseason. Cousins is approaching the midway point of that contract, and it's become obvious he'll never provide the Vikings with a positive return on their dubious investment. 

With Minnesota's 16-6 loss to the division-rival Chicago Bears on Sunday at Soldier Field, teams quarterbacked by Cousins are now 4-27 against opponents with winning records. 

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The Vikes hardly needed him in their two September wins. At home and favored in both cases, they rode running back Dalvin Cook and beat up on the Atlanta Falcons and Oakland Raiders. The 31-year-old signal-caller completed a grand total of 23 passes for 272 yards in those two games. 

But on the road against higher-quality opponents with substantially higher stakes, Cousins has again failed to be a hero. Two weeks after he completed just 14 of 32 passes and threw two interceptions in a loss to the Green Bay Packers, Cousins averaged just 6.5 yards per pass attempt and took six sacks while generating just one scoring drive all day against Chicago. 

His passer rating in those two easy wins: 122.0.

His passer rating in the two tough losses: 73.4.

It's the same horror film, and the most terrifying part is it probably can't end until that boondoggle contract expires in the 2021 offseason. 

Sunday's performance was actually worse than the numbers indicate. Minnesota didn't score for 57 minutes before finding the end zone in what was essentially garbage time. Cousins has spent much of his career accumulating stats with big leads or deficits, and this was no different. This game was relatively close for three-plus quarters, and Cousins didn't make an impact until it was far too late.

He suffered a strip sack on the first play of the third quarter, and he followed that up with four consecutive drives that ended in punts. He had just 133 passing yards prior to that late touchdown drive, and as a team the Vikings had just 182. He was under constant pressure, but he failed to adjust or improve his reaction time, and he was slow to pick up on the Chicago pass rush for all four quarters. 

The Vikings were admittedly facing one of the NFL's best defenses, but that's still unacceptable when you're trailing for the entire game. Ditto for the fact that Cousins completed just one pass that traveled 15-plus yards and attempted only three.

On the first of those three attempts, he overthrew an open Adam Thielen on what would have been a first-quarter touchdown bomb. It wasn't an easy throw, but one you've got to make more often than not when you're the seventh-highest-paid player in NFL history. 

Bad day at the office, but there have been too many of these days for us to give Cousins the benefit of the doubt. He's painfully inconsistent, and the mistakes he makes routinely in the first three quarters usually leave him and his team with no margin for error when games are on the line. 

And that's why the Vikings failed to make the playoffs despite having the league's fourth-rated defense last season. It's why they're 2-2 this year despite the fact that the D has surrendered 21 or fewer points in all four contests. 

Including Minnesota, five teams have given up fewer than 16 points per game this season. The other four are a combined 12-4. Only eight teams gave up fewer points than Minnesota did last year, and six of those eight made the playoffs. 

Essentially, a quarter of the way through Cousins' second season with the Vikings, he's provided substantial proof that his dud first season was no fluke. Fans have already soured on the $84 million man, and his comically low pass attempt total suggests the Vikings coaching staff has also lost faith. 

Maybe we all should have seen this coming. Cousins was in the right place at the right time as a free agent in 2018. The supply and demand dynamics at the quarterback position were even more warped then than they are now, and the Vikings swung the bat on a veteran quarterback who had a losing record and only one Pro Bowl nod on his resume. 

He's the highest-paid player of all time who hasn't been to a Super Bowl (he hasn't won a playoff game), and he and Carson Wentz are the only players making that kind of money despite not having played in multiple Pro Bowls. He was a fourth-round pick with obvious flaws coming into the league, and he's since feasted on a few flashes in the pan.  

"Kirk Cousins, Franchise Quarterback" has never seemed sustainable. And now it's apparent that Minnesota's $84 million experiment is backfiring.

Unfortunately for an organization that has already dropped over $30 million into that sinkhole, the Vikings are likely handcuffed to Cousins for another 15 months and $50-odd million. 

Buyer beware. Better luck in 2021. It's a cold biz. 

Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.