Week 16: Minnesota Vikings vs New Orleans Saints 12/25/20 4:30 PM ET

[pavikingsfan]

Except his contract isn't restricting the team. Cousins in the 7th highest paid QB and his play has been on par with the other QBs in the same range. This stat was from 3 weeks ago but do you want to know who has the highest passer rating in the league under pressure? That would be Kirk Cousins. He's #3 in yards per attempt, #10 in deep ball attempts, 7th in completion %, #8 in EPA, #11 in completion % under pressure and the 8th most TD passes.

Do you want to know which contracts actually are restricting the team? How about Kyle Rudolph being the 5th highest paid tight end and only 28 catches on the season. Or how about Anthony Barr and his salary of 13.5 million being the 9th highest for an OLB? That also includes edge rushers so you can see how grossly overpaid he is. We can look at Anthony Harris and how his play has fallen off a cliff this year. His franchise tag made him the 7th highest paid safety, more than Harrison Smith! We're also paying 29 million dollars to 8 players not even on the team. Then you have over 30 million going to 3 guys who aren't even close to living up to their contracts. Combined that's over 50 million dollars. Yet Cousins and his contract is the problem? Give me a break.

Also, you want to blame Cousins contract for inability to improve the OL? Another joke. Our 3 best OL (O'Neil, Bradbury, Cleveland) have all been drafted since Cousins took over. We've been paying Reiff top 10 OT money the whole time Cousins has been here. According to football outsiders, the OL is the 13th best in the league. 10th in rushing, 20th in pass pro.

It's ridiculous to think 1 contract will hinder the rest of the team. The Rams, Eagles, Cowboys, Titans, 49ers, etc. have been able to spend money elsewhere while also paying a borderline top 10 QB.

Current Contract
Kirk Cousins signed a 2 year, $66,000,000 contract with the Minnesota Vikings, including a $30,000,000 signing bonus, $66,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $33,000,000. In 2020, Cousins will earn a base salary of $9,500,000, a signing bonus of $30,000,000 and a workout bonus of $500,000, while carrying a cap hit of $21,000,000 and a dead cap value of $62,500,000.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/minnesot...-cousins-9915/

$21 mi cap hit is 10.64% of our cap. It is absolutely restricting the team. Are you saying it's not part of the problem? He was paid to take this team to the next level. We're going backwards. Rudy's contract ($8.825 mil 4.47%) is not good as is Barrs ($12.7 mil 6.5%) . Barr has been overrated since day one and I was on the don't over pay Barr wagon in FA as well. Yes we are drafting O-linemen to protect our qb. Why? Because they come with friendly rookie contracts. We are 27th in the league in cap space. Cousins looks great at times. But absolute trash at times. His numbers get over inflated by our constant trash time stats in games we lost well before they're over. The most disappointing thing to me was give him the extension this spring. Why? Because he has top 8 stats? NOBODY is knocking the door down to sign Kirk Cousins. He is what his record in big games says he is. Garbage. This team will not win anything meaningful with Kirk Cousins. Love him and his stats all you want. We paid him to be a winner and instead we are not. The league avg is almost $11 mil in cap space. We are at $3.3 mil and will finish under .500. Spielman needs to be shown the door first. A new GM is stuck with his mess unless we can find a sucker to take Cousins ridiculous contract. That GM should get to pick his coach and rebuild this team.

[pacofunk64]

There is no doubt that Cousins contract does hurt the team but you can say that technically about every single QB paid in the top 10. That's why you have to draft well and develop players to pick up the pieces.

Cousins played well enough this year to win 10+ games. If we had played with Hunter, Pierce and Barr from the get go we likely are closer to that. Throw in the fact that after Kendricks went down the defense just could not overcome that.

[pacofunk64]

I'm honestly not sure what else a QB can do to earn the respect from the fan base. He's had the best 3 year run in Vikings history. He's played every single god damn snap despite being one of the highest pressured and hit QB's. He's not perfect but dude had played his guys out for this team with a piss poor OL. We going OL in RD1 more than likely and with a lot of draft picks I am highly confident that we will bounce back next year.

In my opinion it is playoffs for Zim or else he probably got to go. I am a big Zim fan but we got to get over the hump. Or at least take a shot to get over that hump.

[vikingsfan0845]

Current Contract
Kirk Cousins signed a 2 year, $66,000,000 contract with the Minnesota Vikings, including a $30,000,000 signing bonus, $66,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $33,000,000. In 2020, Cousins will earn a base salary of $9,500,000, a signing bonus of $30,000,000 and a workout bonus of $500,000, while carrying a cap hit of $21,000,000 and a dead cap value of $62,500,000.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/minnesot...-cousins-9915/

$21 mi cap hit is 10.64% of our cap. It is absolutely restricting the team. Are you saying it's not part of the problem? He was paid to take this team to the next level. We're going backwards. Rudy's contract ($8.825 mil 4.47%) is not good as is Barrs ($12.7 mil 6.5%) . Barr has been overrated since day one and I was on the don't over pay Barr wagon in FA as well. Yes we are drafting O-linemen to protect our qb. Why? Because they come with friendly rookie contracts. We are 27th in the league in cap space. Cousins looks great at times. But absolute trash at times. His numbers get over inflated by our constant trash time stats in games we lost well before they're over. The most disappointing thing to me was give him the extension this spring. Why? Because he has top 8 stats? NOBODY is knocking the door down to sign Kirk Cousins. He is what his record in big games says he is. Garbage. This team will not win anything meaningful with Kirk Cousins. Love him and his stats all you want. We paid him to be a winner and instead we are not. The league avg is almost $11 mil in cap space. We are at $3.3 mil and will finish under .500. Spielman needs to be shown the door first. A new GM is stuck with his mess unless we can find a sucker to take Cousins ridiculous contract. That GM should get to pick his coach and rebuild this team.

Ok so let me get something straight here. I brought up how almost 60 million dollars (around 30% of our cap space) is going towards players that are either not living up to their contract or are not even on the team yet you still want to blame Cousins as the biggest issue??? You serious man? Kirk's play is not the reason this team has regressed from 2019. His performance is the 2nd half against the Bears, Panthers, and Jags is one of the biggest reasons this team isn't picking in the top 5. Going back to last season, if Kirk doesn't lead that 20 point come back against the Broncos we don't even make the playoffs. I mean we're playing this season getting zero snaps from Danielle Hunter and Michael Pierce, Barr missing 14 games, Dantzler missing 4, and Kendricks missing 3. The Vikings have the 5th most man games lost this year due to injury. This defense has been decimated with injuries. From 2017-2019 the Vikings had 4 games, including playoffs, where they did not record a sack. That's happened 4 times this year alone. We're down to starting practice squad players at LB. It truly amazes me how the blame finds it way back to Cousins.

[nessythegreat]

I'll gladly take that. But i am sick of Spielman getting a free pass. This is his mess.



If we don't take Cousins, he signs with the Jets. Do the Jets take Darnold? The whole draft likely changes. Who could have we signed? I'm guessing there were some decent O-linemen available the last 3 years and possibly keeping some of the many players we lost. Joseph? Griffen? I mean these guys are better than whet we got. We had a 2 or 3 year window with our 2017 team. We really just needed to fix the O-line. Keenum's mobility is what gave us a chance. Imagine Cousins as our QB in 2017. It would have looked eerily similar to the last 3 years. Here's a good article on Captain Kirk......

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/kirk-co...160653700.html

So you believe we would've been better with Case or Teddy as the QB? Extremely unlikely that we would've.
So you don't really know of anyone who we could've signed? That's because there wasn't anybody to sign. The only real top OLine free agents have been Andrew Norwell, Brandon Scherff, Joe Thuney and Jack Conklin. The only one that we truly could've had was Norwell. And he was massively overpaid. The rest we already had(Conklin RT) or they were franchise tagged. Good lineman usually don't make it to free agency.

[nessythegreat]

Ok so let me get something straight here. I brought up how almost 60 million dollars (around 30% of our cap space) is going towards players that are either not living up to their contract or are not even on the team yet you still want to blame Cousins as the biggest issue??? You serious man? Kirk's play is not the reason this team has regressed from 2019. His performance is the 2nd half against the Bears, Panthers, and Jags is one of the biggest reasons this team isn't picking in the top 5. Going back to last season, if Kirk doesn't lead that 20 point come back against the Broncos we don't even make the playoffs. I mean we're playing this season getting zero snaps from Danielle Hunter and Michael Pierce, Barr missing 14 games, Dantzler missing 4, and Kendricks missing 3. The Vikings have the 5th most man games lost this year due to injury. This defense has been decimated with injuries. From 2017-2019 the Vikings had 4 games, including playoffs, where they did not record a sack. That's happened 4 times this year alone. We're down to starting practice squad players at LB. It truly amazes me how the blame finds it way back to Cousins.

Couldn't agree more. The Kirk blame is ridiculous and people need to look at the overall team instead of fixating on him.

[VCU4LIFEGOVIKS]

I'm honestly not sure what else a QB can do to earn the respect from the fan base. He's had the best 3 year run in Vikings history. He's played every single god damn snap despite being one of the highest pressured and hit QB's. He's not perfect but dude had played his guys out for this team with a piss poor OL. We going OL in RD1 more than likely and with a lot of draft picks I am highly confident that we will bounce back next year.

In my opinion it is playoffs for Zim or else he probably got to go. I am a big Zim fan but we got to get over the hump. Or at least take a shot to get over that hump.

Winning a Super Bowl would probably be something he could do to earn the respect of the fan base. Perhaps even making it to the Super Bowl or even winning the NFC North would do it. I guess until he manages to do those things we will never know.

[pacofunk64]

Winning a Super Bowl would probably be something he could do to earn the respect of the fan base. Perhaps even making it to the Super Bowl or even winning the NFC North would do it. I guess until he manages to do those things we will never know.

True but we are up against the best QB of all time in Aaron Rodgers so that makes it very difficult. And as I mention, Rodgers being the best QB of all time (debatable I know but top 5 for sure), only has 1 SB win. Outside of Brady, no other active QB has more than 1 SB win. Goes to show just how difficult it is.

[pacofunk64]

What I want to see is more of a consistent playoff run. It's weird because it's been every other year we make or miss the playoffs. I mean, I always say that we are the f'n purgatory if the NFL and it is 100% true.

Funny but sad story...a neighbor kid (10 years old) is a Vikings fan. He started crying after he found out the Vikings lost to the Bears. It's funny because I was 10 years old when I became a fan. I told him, look kid, run away from this team lol. I told him, if it were me, I would be a Chiefs fan. His dad is a die hard Eagles fan so I think eventually he'll lean that way but his mom is a Vikings fan (casual, doesn't really follow them).

[VCU4LIFEGOVIKS]

True but we are up against the best QB of all time in Aaron Rodgers so that makes it very difficult. And as I mention, Rodgers being the best QB of all time (debatable I know but top 5 for sure), only has 1 SB win. Outside of Brady, no other active QB has more than 1 SB win. Goes to show just how difficult it is.

You forgot about Ben Roethlisberger.

Winning a Super Bowl is very difficult. That's something we can definitely agree on. If it was easy then the Vikings would have won a few at this point. It takes a perfect combination of players, coaches and front office execs to pull it off. Do you honestly think that this team and front office have what it takes to get over this hump and achieve what this organization has yet to do since the merger of the NFL and AFL? I personally think we are missing a ton of pieces to the Super Bowl winning puzzle. So many, that it's time for a complete wreck and rebuild from the ground up. I think Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman are above average at what they do but not great. That's also the way I feel about Cousins. In order for this organization to contend for a Super Bowl, they need elite individuals. The best of best. I would not consider any of those three as the best of the best. We've seen what they can do year in and year out. It's barely making the playoffs and if we are lucky getting a win. Expecting something to be different next year is the definition of insanity.

[carter80]

You forgot about Ben Roethlisberger.

Winning a Super Bowl is very difficult. That's something we can definitely agree on. If it was easy then the Vikings would have won a few at this point. It takes a perfect combination of players, coaches and front office execs to pull it off. Do you honestly think that this team and front office have what it takes to get over this hump and achieve what this organization has yet to do since the merger of the NFL and AFL? I personally think we are missing a ton of pieces to the Super Bowl winning puzzle. So many, that it's time for a complete wreck and rebuild from the ground up. I think Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman are above average at what they do but not great. That's also the way I feel about Cousins. In order for this organization to contend for a Super Bowl, they need elite individuals. The best of best. I would not consider any of those three as the best of the best. We've seen what they can do year in and year out. It's barely making the playoffs and if we are lucky getting a win. Expecting something to be different next year is the definition of insanity.

Perfect post. Though, If I am getting rid of any of the three it’s Zimmer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[vikings4lifebro]

[QUOTE=carter80;33762178]Perfect post. Though, If I am getting rid of any of the three it’s Zimmer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/Q
Well if Zimmer goes then we better not hire Urban Myer. Stay far away from him.

[pacofunk64]

Well to be a fan of this team you have to be somewhat insane lol.

That's why after next season if things are the same then I agree. We need to look to move on from Zim and look at a Cousins replacement.

This might be a complete long shot but I believe there will be a few teams that at the very least inquire about Kirk this off season. In particular the 49ers. They will have $27 million in cap next year, can cut Jimmy with just a $2 million cap hit and save $23 million.

[SiteWolf]

actually fix the OL and Kirk is elite...but they never do

[VCU4LIFEGOVIKS]

actually fix the OL and Kirk is elite...but they never do

I'd love to see that. Would be nice if we took some guards early in the draft and maybe one in free agency. I'm not holding my breath for this to happen though.

I'd also love to see the offense open up. I feel like the commitment to the run has limited us in quite a few games when we were trailing. Especially in the second half. We were basically running the clock out on ourselves when we have some awesome WRs and TEs Kirk should be targeting. It also made our offense very predictable. We ran the ball on second down more than any other team in the NFL and every defense we played knew it.

This is what Kirk said regarding running the ball so much "We still devote a lot of our plays to running the football," Cousins said. "So the number of times we're handing the ball off and doing so fairly effectively, those just are plays where we're not taking that opportunity to take a shot downfield." I understand that Cook is an elite RB but I feel like this style of play is going to run him into the ground quickly while we have two elite WRs that could take the burden off of him and help make this offense less predictable.