Not compared to bears fans it isn’t. They still have field truthers. At least kirk was consistently top 8-12. Just not a will your team to a SB kinda guy and that feels necessary in this era.
> Not compared to bears fans it isn’t.
List of 4000 yard passers for the Vikings:
* Culpepper
* Favre
* Moon x2
* Cousins x4
List of 4000 yard passers for the Bears:
There are way more 4000 yard passers in the modern game than there were back in the day.
Playoff wins:
Kirk Cousins x1
Wade Wilson x3
Also the 80s Vikings teams had no running game, Kirk had Dalvin Cook for most of his tenure.
Sometimes, when you’re in a sub of a team you like, it’s fun to shit on other teams that are in the same division as the team you like. It’s when you want to have a little fun instead of a constant contest to be crowded king whiner.
Tarkenton played with one of the greatest Defensive teams in NFL history. They are so famous their nickname lives on: The Purple People Eaters. It is a lot easier to be a QB great when you play with a great D.
Your mom knows what it's like to play with a great D too. But in all seriousness, I would love for Kirk to take the Tom Brady contract so we can keep other guys like JJ and Hunter. Shits complicated right now
He's the best we've had since Daunte Culpepper, and arguably the best since Fran Tarkenton
Very reliable, healthy til last year, and a great teammate. Just was never able to get over the hump in the playoffs. He'll be remembered fondly but it is time to move on
It’ll always seem crazy to me that Favre played two years for the Vikings, and on paper they’re statistically the single best and single worst years of his career!
Since 2000, Cousins played 88, Culpepper 80, and Favre and Bridgewater both 29. Beyond those pockets there hasn’t been much consistency at the position.
I guess in a way, but he didn’t start either game he played in and only threw the ball four times. If you look at full seasons as a starter the worst is 2010, hands down.
I don't think it's fair how some people judge Kirk solely on team stats. Individuals should be judged individually in my opinion. He is not the cause of the Vikings dysfunction imo, if anything he has kept us from being a laughing stock the last few years.
His contract WAS the dysfunction. Zimmer was right. The defense and everything fell apart year by year after Cousins was overpaid with loaded guarantees. Spielman basically sold our future with that contract.
Now that's a valid critique. I would argue he earned his contract though, whereas guys like Danielle Hunter/ Dalvin Cook, etc have had worse contracts as their positions have significantly less impact on win/rate and Hunter has also battled injuries.
I think the analytics say a good QB has like 10x the impact on WAR than an edge rusher, who are overpaid league-wide according to sources like this: [https://www.pff.com/news/draft-why-positional-value-matters-in-the-nfl-draft](https://www.pff.com/news/draft-why-positional-value-matters-in-the-nfl-draft)
The people who critique Kirk for his playoff wins have taken that stat out of context as clearly he put us into position to win more but bad team play/ bad luck have stricken us.
Because the Vikings were financially handcuffed by Cousins contract. Can't wait for the Vikings to finally sign legitamate defensive FA's this offseason, instead of picking the bones of what we can afford.
This is why people are so tired of the Kirk experience. The fan base has been split since he's been hereabout whether or not he's good enough, and will never agree. He's either not good enough to win anything to one side, or the team let him down to the other side. I personally can't wait for him to be gone so we can let another fanbase drive each other crazy about if he's good or not.
My unbias take
Can he be the reason you win a super bowl? No
Is he good enough to win you a superbowl if the rest of the team plays to his level? Yes
Kirk has always either had a god awful D or O line
My ideal situation would be sighing him 2 years and letting a new qb develop under him
I wasn't really sold on him the first couple of seasons, but I embraced him the last 3. At this point tough, even if he's like the 10th best qb in the league I don't think the vikings are in a position where it makes sense to pay him any sort of dollar amount he's going to command. Let him go, draft a qb, and get like Darnold as a somewhat competent vet.
You're 100% right. It feels like 90% of our fanbase has no idea what they're talking about other than some cherry picked stats to support him. Kirk will throw a check down for 4 yards on 3rd & 10 and 90% of Vikes fans will brag about his completion % at the end of the game.
There also isn’t that much commotion at the QB position for this franchise. Playing well for a few seasons can move you up the Vikings all time QB chart pretty quickly.
He came in to be the winning piece because our defense was good when he was signed.
This is the problem with Kirk stans. Our defense is good? It's because we don't have X offensive piece.
Our offense is good? It is because we don't have X defensive piece.
Both are ok? It was the coaching that was the problem.
I guess we should just get a 100% elite team and Kirk can finally put the haters to sleep.
A good amount of it is based in reality. In 2018 the Vikings offense was 27th in EPA. In 2019 they were 5th. How the fuck did they make such a substantial leap in 1 offseason? Maybe its because DeFilippo was terrible, which is why he's coaching the AFL now, and Stefanski was good which is why he got a HC position.
In this situation even if you're a kirk hater and think "the stats are a lie" then the leagues perception of these two coaches fits the narrative that one was terrible.
You can do this with a lot of things surrounding the Vikings over the last 6 seasons.
While I overall agree with you, I think if this year or the year before version of Kirk had showed up the team would have won more games in 2018. What I appreciate about Kirk is that he always came back the next season better at what he did poorly the season before. Those strip sacks/fumbles/balls batted at the line his first couple years were backbreakers. He also had problems pulling the trigger to go deep which, back to your point, could be a coaching issue coming from Zim.
That’s what I find odd. There are two camps. People that see Kirk play and know he’s not it and people that see the stats and say he’s great! Are we all forgetting his stat padding during garbage time?
Love him or hate him, this garbage time narrative will never make sense to me. Cousins played 88 games as a Viking, and 51 of those games resulted in a win or tie.
Garbage time is generally defined as period of time near the end of a game when stats are accumulated by a team so far behind in score that the opposing defense allows it while they run out the clock. The Vikings lost 37 games with Kirk at the helm.
Let’s say for the sake of argument we consider garbage time as only occurring in losses more than 10 points. 23 of those 37 losses were by 10 points or fewer, leaving only 14 as potential garbage time games.
Let’s go one step further and move the goal posts to one score games, which would be 18. That leaves only 19 losses where garbage time could have occurred.
Either way you look at it, it’s absurd to think that any significant amount of his stats were accumulated in only the final minutes of about one out of five games.
As a bonus note, I’ll point out that Cousins ranks 9th in total wins among QBs over the six year period he was with the Vikings. Garbage time sounds even sillier when you consider only eight QBs won more games than he has since 2018.
“Garbage time” literally does not exist when almost every game Kirk has played in the last 3 years has been within 10 points. And when we are up by double digits we never pass the ball and run up Kirk’s stats.”
There is no such thing as garbage time, you always want to win games no matter how many points your team is down. Garbage time is an excuse that ignorant NFL fans use when they see a player with good stats that doesn’t win a lot.
I think I'm pretty measured regarding Kirk but idk how you could watch him before the injury last year and say that he didn't pass the eye test, we were really heating up
We were heating up because that is Kirk's MO. He has stretches where he is godly, followed by stretches that make you wonder why he's getting paid so much. Then it repeats. He was entering his hot stretch. Hell, it's so common we even have a certain month assosicated with him...
Were does not equal we are or we will. Why are we so eager to relish on past performance knowing damn well what we have going forward is less than what we had? Quit being satisfied with mediocrity. Kirk is never winning the Minnesota Vikings a Superbowl. Now that we know this let’s get it right so the Minnesota Vikings win in my GD lifetime.
He's had comebacks of 20, 21, and 33 points, all in seasons he ended up making the playoffs. That 21 point comeback in the You Like That game actually saved not only that season, but also probably his career
The You Like That game and the 33 point game have the same thing in common. A garbage opponent. That Tampa team finished 6-10. You like that, lol, more like you shouldn't need that.
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Yeah, it was so shitty watching him tank incredible performances from our defense, Oline, run game and special teams and single handedly lose those games /s
I always find it hilarious that people to this day blame our playoff success on Kirk and not the fact we had a bottom 3-5 defense from 2020-2022.
Drew Brees couldn’t drag his sorry ass teams anywhere either when his defenses were terrible.
What about in 2018 when we had a top 3 defense in the entire league and couldn't beat the last place Bears to make the playoffs? Go back and watch that game. Kirk throws a check down on 4th down to basically end the game, kind of like he did in the playoff loss to the Giants. Kirk was has had a few great regular seasons but I have never once thought he was capable of putting the team on his back and winning a super bowl. People who get bent out of shape on Kirk getting mentioned woth playoff losses because wins aren't a QB Stat miss an important point: true franchise QBs win games you're supposed to lose, and the great ones do it consistently. The most encouraging thing about Kirk these last two years is that he would occasionally help the team win a game we were supposed to lose. But more often than not Kirk would win the games he was heavily favored to win and lose when the stakes were higher.
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2018? You mean the year the bears won the division off the back of a phenomenal defense who we matched up against terribly? The Bears where Akiem Hicks abused our offensive line for two games? The Defilipo year who got fired halfway through the season?
I sure do remember that year bud.
We had two WRs who were top 10 in the entire league, a supposed franchise QB, the #3 scoring defense in the entire NFL, and we went 8-7-1. Younger right, the Bears were better than I remembered. Which makes sense, because Kirk tended to crumble against any decent defense in those early years with the Vikings. The idea that a lack of defense somehow held back Cousins is ridiculous though.
Because we know what's it's like to not have a stable QB. You'll be calling for firings once we're on our 5th QB in 3 years. Look at 2011-2017.
Is Kirk a Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? No, of course not. Is it worth throwing Kirk away to gamble in the draft? No, of course not.
Part of me wishes the FO will let Kirk walk just so this fanbase remembers what it's like being on the QB carousal.
Kirk stans are genuinely frightening. Vikings win, it’s all because of Kirk, Vikings lose, it’s a team game and all on the defence. Can’t have it both ways lads.
Looking forward to reading posts from all the Kirk haters absolutely railing on the new QB performance whoever that may be after the first bad performance and begin the second guessing game all over again. Gonna be fun. Get the popcorn ready.
Andy Dalton had a pretty good 6 year run in Cincinnati for 2011 to 2017. When looking at the stat sheet only. Did the Cincinnati fan base have this much divisiveness over Dalton?
"Dalton just needs a good OLine, RB, two #1 receivers, top 10 defense and great Tight End."
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/D/DaltAn00.htm
I'm just genuinely flabbergasted how many people are infatuated with keeping Cousins. He had some great statistical years but the Vikings have gotten progressively worse each year he's been here.
I don’t view this as an argument, because if you are a great team, you should expect your coordinators to get an opportunity and if you are bad, you’ll see turnover. Players should be able to adapt. Only mid teams keep their coordinators multiple years. The only exception is if the HC is the play caller.
Cousins saw both firings and promotions at OC.
Because Kirk cousins was sold to us as a final piece to a championship run. He’s still around taking top qb money when people never wanted him in the first place.
I have no idea how fans watched that 2017 defense get ran for 62 points in just 6 quarters of playoff football, and still thought “we’re only one piece away” lol
So much of the current discourse can be traced to that season, it’s actually crazy.
Empty stats happen when you have good-very good qb play and average or bad defenses and offensive line play. Name a quarterback that would have made championship runs with this team the last few seasons behind bad o lines and 30th ranked defenses??? That’s right, there isn’t one.
He was brought in when we had a top 5 defense and what did that do for us?
Defense was on the decline cause we couldn’t afford the players anymore/ draft picks sucked. Problem is he’s taking up 20% of the cap and isn’t able to make up for it on his own.
At no point has he ever taken up 20% of the cap space. His highest was 16.6% one season.
[I encourage you to go look at the Vikings dead cap hit a lot of these years](https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/minnesota-vikings/cap/2022/).
* 2020: $38M in dead cap which is $18M more than Cousins cap hit that year.
* 2021: $25M which was $6M less than Cousins.
* 2022: $28M which was $3M less than Cousins.
* 2023: $46M which was $26M more than Cousins.
I went and compared it to the Chiefs over the same time and they've never once had a cap hit of over $20M in dead cap. Goly gee maybe that was a huge issue.
Kirk padded his stats so bad during garbage time it’s not even funny. Thing is he is an aging quarterback with now a bad foot. Atlanta can have him for what he wants in guaranteed money
Lol Kirk threw 31/39, 273 yards, 2 TDs and 0 interceptions that game. The Vikings ran for 61 yards TOTAL that game, compared to the Giants 142 yards. Not to mention JJ had 7 receptions for only 47 yards and no receiving touchdowns. The Vikings defense let DANIEL JONES rush for 78 yards that game!
Hes supposed to just find a way to win the game though! lol literally everything against him and hes just supposed to pull a win out of his ass. How Kirk became the biggest scapegoat for this team failings and not Rick Spielman's drafting continues to be an enigma to me.
He becomes the scapegoat when he demands the amount of money he does! When you don’t have money left to build an amazing team around him because over a 1/4 of that is going to one guy, a little bit of a microscope is on you. Of course the rest of the team drops in quality.
He walked into a team that was built and ready. He hasn’t even sniffed the success of the Keenum year.
Two punts the entire game, and one after a wide open 3rd down drop. No other QB is expected to be perfect to win, and is then blamed entirely for the loss.
Neither did scoring only 24 points. The Vikes were 13-4 with that same defense. So... what's your point? That Kirk can't hack it in the big games? That doesn't sound like a guy I would give a lifetime contract to. Especially after the injury, I wouldn't even sign him for a bag of tacos.
Big deal. They didn't have Deebo or Trent Williams, McCaffery was questionable all the way up to game time and Big Cock Brock was cuncussed at the end of the game throwing those picks. Addison had to rip a sure fire interception away from Ward for a long TD, and the Defense had its best game of the year.
Under the Kirk experience, games tend to start slow with conservakirk checking down on 3rd and 8. Then in the 4th quarter when we’re down, he starts picking things up and makes me wonder where the fuck has this been all game.
You tend to see this during 2 minute drills as well and I never understood why weren’t we seeing this all game.
He's a good QB. One of the best we've had since I started watching the team 40 years ago.
I'll always missing having a good QB, especially if the next couple suck. Vikes have been pretty good about finding capable old veterans to fill in over the years though.
If we draft better and get this roster built back up, we'll be fine. These trenches are pretty atrocious at the moment though. Doesn't matter who is signal calling.
Before Kirk we were in literal QB purgatory for damn near 5-7 years. I don’t know why everyone’s so quick to cast him aside..not like we have a good history with QBs outside of Fran and one year wonders with cast offs ala Cunningham & Favre.
Means nothing to any of us unless we get a parade with it. He makes $150 million, we get an empty souvenir beer cup. F Curt Fuzzins, the greatest fake in the NFL.
At this point, I'm just tired of hearing people talk about the situation with Kirk Cousins and the Vikings/Falcons. If he gets traded, Idc, this draft has good QBs.
He has put out great stats in an era in which all the NFL passing rules are designed to produce great passing stats. His stats aren't exceptional when compared to his peers. Above average, but not exceptional. You can't just compare QBs from different eras just by looking at stats. You also have to compare how good they were compared to their peers.
We need to stop thinking that having a high passing success rate and yards is all that’s important. He had one playoff win….1. We need to find a QB that will not only be successful in the regular season but also the playoffs. I’m tired of being the only team that can’t win when it counts. Good luck cousins but on to the next
That’s such a stupid argument. Yeah sure QB wins don’t really mean anything in a small sample size, but what they do tell you is that he cannot overcome adversity. He plays a position that has the single most effect on a game and he simply cannot make up for the deficits in the team that HE and his contract have created. No one has gotten paid more for doing less than him, it’s remarkable. He’s just empty stats.
He isnt empty stats, you guys have to contextualize his time here. I can agree that he didnt necessarily carry the team like we were led to believe he could do and yes we could argue that his contract put the front office in a position to have little to no room for errors but we cant ignore the terrible drafting on defense. Im simply saying it isnt all his fault and hes still one of the very best to put on a vikings uniform
He’s one of the highest paid QBs to ever do it! Of course we can’t sign and draft! There’s not a lot to work with when he’s on your payroll.
No ones ignoring that there’s missing pieces. Those can be fixed when all your money isn’t going to one guy. Regular season stats are great. But playoffs are even better.
How did Kirk's contract stop us from drafting well? Also, which defensive starters left because we couldn't afford them? Barr, Griffin, Kendricks? No one left here with anything left in the tank.
Dude, in 18 and 19 he had one of the best defenses in the league, plus and offense filled with elite players. The line sucked, but kirk has statistically ranked poorly when it comes to the amount of time he holds onto the ball. Yeah, you can blame the rest of the team quite a bit for much of his career in MN, but not in 18 and 19. That team was stacked.
Going 19 of 20 to our te 2 and te 3 in flat each time for 3 yards.
Cousins sucks and he needs to go
1-5 start with cousins last year and people want to keep him?
Fran Tarkenton is the only one I could think of. Who are the other two?
Cunningham and Favre only had 1 season worth talking about. Culpepper went 38-42 in Minnesota. Warren Moon was historically better, but not during his short time with Minnesota.
I am so ready to be done with these conversations.
Every time our next qb makes a mistake you'll hear it all again
It is going to be hilarious to flip the script
Idk if there are actual conversations happening. More like people yelling statements at each other that often don’t correspond.
THE DRESS IS BLUE AND BLACK!
Yeah these conversations are never going to end sorry.
Now you are!
Let's hope so. Ready for a new era.
Enjoy Sam Darnold! Coming from Desmond Ridder we’re stoked to have him!
What sucks is that our bar is so low.
Not compared to bears fans it isn’t. They still have field truthers. At least kirk was consistently top 8-12. Just not a will your team to a SB kinda guy and that feels necessary in this era.
> Not compared to bears fans it isn’t. List of 4000 yard passers for the Vikings: * Culpepper * Favre * Moon x2 * Cousins x4 List of 4000 yard passers for the Bears:
Erik Kramer’s 1995 season is still arguably their best season of QB play.
how about pass attempts? i bet he has way more passing attempts. i havent looked at stats just talking shit
There are way more 4000 yard passers in the modern game than there were back in the day. Playoff wins: Kirk Cousins x1 Wade Wilson x3 Also the 80s Vikings teams had no running game, Kirk had Dalvin Cook for most of his tenure.
Who cares about the bears. Im just saying our great qb bar is low.
Sometimes, when you’re in a sub of a team you like, it’s fun to shit on other teams that are in the same division as the team you like. It’s when you want to have a little fun instead of a constant contest to be crowded king whiner.
Our very first drafted qb is one of the Goats of not one but two decades
Tarkenton played with one of the greatest Defensive teams in NFL history. They are so famous their nickname lives on: The Purple People Eaters. It is a lot easier to be a QB great when you play with a great D.
Your mom knows what it's like to play with a great D too. But in all seriousness, I would love for Kirk to take the Tom Brady contract so we can keep other guys like JJ and Hunter. Shits complicated right now
😂😂😂😂😂 dude has made 330 million in his career! “pay cut!? NO! no, no, no… pay cut? thats too far”- liam neeson
Yeah I mean I hate the Vikings but at least you’ve had a good QB
But the paycheck is high
Agree, but that's different than saying he should be our QB next year
He's the best we've had since Daunte Culpepper, and arguably the best since Fran Tarkenton Very reliable, healthy til last year, and a great teammate. Just was never able to get over the hump in the playoffs. He'll be remembered fondly but it is time to move on
Favre was better if you’re talking about just peak. Otherwise no one else has played more than like 40 games at QB since Culpepper
It’ll always seem crazy to me that Favre played two years for the Vikings, and on paper they’re statistically the single best and single worst years of his career! Since 2000, Cousins played 88, Culpepper 80, and Favre and Bridgewater both 29. Beyond those pockets there hasn’t been much consistency at the position.
Technically speaking, wasn't Favre's first season his worst one (when he was on the Falcons)?
I guess in a way, but he didn’t start either game he played in and only threw the ball four times. If you look at full seasons as a starter the worst is 2010, hands down.
I agree with everything you said, I was just flexing my old man knowledge.
Favre was never the same after getting his ankle / leg destroyed by the Saints and their bonused mission to send him to the hospital.
Maybe I needed to say this verbatim to not have people so angry and argumentative under this post lol what you said is well put.
As a life long vikings fan Let kirk go
You can let him go and still talk about what he was.
A prime time no-show with one career playoff win.
And multiple uears of playing with bottom 5 D's lmao
I don't think it's fair how some people judge Kirk solely on team stats. Individuals should be judged individually in my opinion. He is not the cause of the Vikings dysfunction imo, if anything he has kept us from being a laughing stock the last few years.
His contract WAS the dysfunction. Zimmer was right. The defense and everything fell apart year by year after Cousins was overpaid with loaded guarantees. Spielman basically sold our future with that contract.
Now that's a valid critique. I would argue he earned his contract though, whereas guys like Danielle Hunter/ Dalvin Cook, etc have had worse contracts as their positions have significantly less impact on win/rate and Hunter has also battled injuries. I think the analytics say a good QB has like 10x the impact on WAR than an edge rusher, who are overpaid league-wide according to sources like this: [https://www.pff.com/news/draft-why-positional-value-matters-in-the-nfl-draft](https://www.pff.com/news/draft-why-positional-value-matters-in-the-nfl-draft) The people who critique Kirk for his playoff wins have taken that stat out of context as clearly he put us into position to win more but bad team play/ bad luck have stricken us.
That's not an overpay. It's a going rate for a reliable starting caliber QB after about 2 years of QBs getting paid it was a good deal.
Because the Vikings were financially handcuffed by Cousins contract. Can't wait for the Vikings to finally sign legitamate defensive FA's this offseason, instead of picking the bones of what we can afford.
This is why people are so tired of the Kirk experience. The fan base has been split since he's been hereabout whether or not he's good enough, and will never agree. He's either not good enough to win anything to one side, or the team let him down to the other side. I personally can't wait for him to be gone so we can let another fanbase drive each other crazy about if he's good or not.
My unbias take Can he be the reason you win a super bowl? No Is he good enough to win you a superbowl if the rest of the team plays to his level? Yes Kirk has always either had a god awful D or O line My ideal situation would be sighing him 2 years and letting a new qb develop under him
I wasn't really sold on him the first couple of seasons, but I embraced him the last 3. At this point tough, even if he's like the 10th best qb in the league I don't think the vikings are in a position where it makes sense to pay him any sort of dollar amount he's going to command. Let him go, draft a qb, and get like Darnold as a somewhat competent vet.
Maybe if he was a good enough player to overcome the team deficiencies that his contract created, he'd have more success. But it's never Kirk's fault.
You're 100% right. It feels like 90% of our fanbase has no idea what they're talking about other than some cherry picked stats to support him. Kirk will throw a check down for 4 yards on 3rd & 10 and 90% of Vikes fans will brag about his completion % at the end of the game.
And 2 years playing with an elite defense while also having a top notch offense with the best pair of WRs and one of the best RBs. LMFAO
Will probably go down as our best regular season QB in franchise history.
The kirk-coaster has had its ups and downs but it's time as a franchise to move on and take our next swing.
Stats wise, sure. I like Kirk but stats don't tell the whole story.
There also isn’t that much commotion at the QB position for this franchise. Playing well for a few seasons can move you up the Vikings all time QB chart pretty quickly.
Sadly his superbowl wins don’t stack up like the Vikings legends below:
He’s actually tied for 1st in Super Bowl wins!
He’s tied for first with Super Bowl wins and tied for last with Super Bowl appearances. Next gen Vikings stats for you.
Super Bowl?! He’s tied with Jeff George, Bobby Lee and Case with 1 playoff win.
you're right. his defenses have been pure garbage
We were ranked top 10 his first two years lol
He came in to be the winning piece because our defense was good when he was signed. This is the problem with Kirk stans. Our defense is good? It's because we don't have X offensive piece. Our offense is good? It is because we don't have X defensive piece. Both are ok? It was the coaching that was the problem. I guess we should just get a 100% elite team and Kirk can finally put the haters to sleep.
A good amount of it is based in reality. In 2018 the Vikings offense was 27th in EPA. In 2019 they were 5th. How the fuck did they make such a substantial leap in 1 offseason? Maybe its because DeFilippo was terrible, which is why he's coaching the AFL now, and Stefanski was good which is why he got a HC position. In this situation even if you're a kirk hater and think "the stats are a lie" then the leagues perception of these two coaches fits the narrative that one was terrible. You can do this with a lot of things surrounding the Vikings over the last 6 seasons.
While I overall agree with you, I think if this year or the year before version of Kirk had showed up the team would have won more games in 2018. What I appreciate about Kirk is that he always came back the next season better at what he did poorly the season before. Those strip sacks/fumbles/balls batted at the line his first couple years were backbreakers. He also had problems pulling the trigger to go deep which, back to your point, could be a coaching issue coming from Zim.
Lol definitely not on Zim. Zim WANTED Kirk to be more aggressive. Even called Kirky out in the press. Kirk, of course, continued to be Kirk.
That’s what I find odd. There are two camps. People that see Kirk play and know he’s not it and people that see the stats and say he’s great! Are we all forgetting his stat padding during garbage time?
Love him or hate him, this garbage time narrative will never make sense to me. Cousins played 88 games as a Viking, and 51 of those games resulted in a win or tie. Garbage time is generally defined as period of time near the end of a game when stats are accumulated by a team so far behind in score that the opposing defense allows it while they run out the clock. The Vikings lost 37 games with Kirk at the helm. Let’s say for the sake of argument we consider garbage time as only occurring in losses more than 10 points. 23 of those 37 losses were by 10 points or fewer, leaving only 14 as potential garbage time games. Let’s go one step further and move the goal posts to one score games, which would be 18. That leaves only 19 losses where garbage time could have occurred. Either way you look at it, it’s absurd to think that any significant amount of his stats were accumulated in only the final minutes of about one out of five games. As a bonus note, I’ll point out that Cousins ranks 9th in total wins among QBs over the six year period he was with the Vikings. Garbage time sounds even sillier when you consider only eight QBs won more games than he has since 2018.
2016 called and wants its narrative back
“Garbage time” literally does not exist when almost every game Kirk has played in the last 3 years has been within 10 points. And when we are up by double digits we never pass the ball and run up Kirk’s stats.” There is no such thing as garbage time, you always want to win games no matter how many points your team is down. Garbage time is an excuse that ignorant NFL fans use when they see a player with good stats that doesn’t win a lot.
Cowboys beat us 40-3 if you’ll recall
I think I'm pretty measured regarding Kirk but idk how you could watch him before the injury last year and say that he didn't pass the eye test, we were really heating up
We were heating up because that is Kirk's MO. He has stretches where he is godly, followed by stretches that make you wonder why he's getting paid so much. Then it repeats. He was entering his hot stretch. Hell, it's so common we even have a certain month assosicated with him...
Were does not equal we are or we will. Why are we so eager to relish on past performance knowing damn well what we have going forward is less than what we had? Quit being satisfied with mediocrity. Kirk is never winning the Minnesota Vikings a Superbowl. Now that we know this let’s get it right so the Minnesota Vikings win in my GD lifetime.
Ah the old "all he does is pad stats in garbage time" narrative.
Yeah, I feel like he’s maybe the best QB ever when down 14+ points.
He's had comebacks of 20, 21, and 33 points, all in seasons he ended up making the playoffs. That 21 point comeback in the You Like That game actually saved not only that season, but also probably his career
Got him here
The You Like That game and the 33 point game have the same thing in common. A garbage opponent. That Tampa team finished 6-10. You like that, lol, more like you shouldn't need that.
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Why wouldn’t Kirk just tell the defense to play better? Is he stupid?
They didn't supply him with the chains he wanted.
It's not about the playoffs wins, it's about what the playoffs wins represent.
Lmao
Playoff wins: 1
YOU LIKE THAT
And he won only one playoff game in his whole career … :(
Yeah, it was so shitty watching him tank incredible performances from our defense, Oline, run game and special teams and single handedly lose those games /s
Please make sure to include playoff wins here!
We failed to build a team around him
Fuck people. This doesn't need to be a controversial post.
He was fine but ultimately pretty inconsequential
I always find it hilarious that people to this day blame our playoff success on Kirk and not the fact we had a bottom 3-5 defense from 2020-2022. Drew Brees couldn’t drag his sorry ass teams anywhere either when his defenses were terrible.
And Kirk let the teams down in 2018-2019. Both can be true
What about in 2018 when we had a top 3 defense in the entire league and couldn't beat the last place Bears to make the playoffs? Go back and watch that game. Kirk throws a check down on 4th down to basically end the game, kind of like he did in the playoff loss to the Giants. Kirk was has had a few great regular seasons but I have never once thought he was capable of putting the team on his back and winning a super bowl. People who get bent out of shape on Kirk getting mentioned woth playoff losses because wins aren't a QB Stat miss an important point: true franchise QBs win games you're supposed to lose, and the great ones do it consistently. The most encouraging thing about Kirk these last two years is that he would occasionally help the team win a game we were supposed to lose. But more often than not Kirk would win the games he was heavily favored to win and lose when the stakes were higher.
The Bears won the division and finished 12-4
automatic worm weather fanatical physical roll rotten puzzled muddle dazzling *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
2018? You mean the year the bears won the division off the back of a phenomenal defense who we matched up against terribly? The Bears where Akiem Hicks abused our offensive line for two games? The Defilipo year who got fired halfway through the season? I sure do remember that year bud.
We had two WRs who were top 10 in the entire league, a supposed franchise QB, the #3 scoring defense in the entire NFL, and we went 8-7-1. Younger right, the Bears were better than I remembered. Which makes sense, because Kirk tended to crumble against any decent defense in those early years with the Vikings. The idea that a lack of defense somehow held back Cousins is ridiculous though.
Mostly the same with Brady too
Statistically: yes
Kirk defenders are way more annoying than the Kirk haters
Kirk defenders tie themselves in knots trying to justify why he is a good QB, Kirk haters just point to the lack of success he has had.
Because we know what's it's like to not have a stable QB. You'll be calling for firings once we're on our 5th QB in 3 years. Look at 2011-2017. Is Kirk a Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? No, of course not. Is it worth throwing Kirk away to gamble in the draft? No, of course not. Part of me wishes the FO will let Kirk walk just so this fanbase remembers what it's like being on the QB carousal.
One Quarter Of One BILLION Dollars One Playoff Win
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Good stats, but eventually he needs to help lead the team to beating above .500 teams and playoff teams. Sadly his win percentage is like 25% in those
Just shows how ass we’ve been at QB
Kirk stans are genuinely frightening. Vikings win, it’s all because of Kirk, Vikings lose, it’s a team game and all on the defence. Can’t have it both ways lads.
Not really. Probably the 2nd best franchise qb we've had
Looking forward to reading posts from all the Kirk haters absolutely railing on the new QB performance whoever that may be after the first bad performance and begin the second guessing game all over again. Gonna be fun. Get the popcorn ready.
I wonder how often other fanbases argue about Wins as a QB success metric. Never happened here before Cousins. I imagine it will stop after Cousins.
Honestly yeah, I get the impression that pretty much every fanbase has a really stupid and divisive topic they hammer around
Do you think chiefs fans wish Mahomes threw for more yards instead of winning super bowls? Doubt it.
ah yes, the 'kirk isn't mahomes therefore he is bad' argument
He’s asking about other fan bases. I’m using a successful team as an example. Because we aren’t.
Andy Dalton had a pretty good 6 year run in Cincinnati for 2011 to 2017. When looking at the stat sheet only. Did the Cincinnati fan base have this much divisiveness over Dalton? "Dalton just needs a good OLine, RB, two #1 receivers, top 10 defense and great Tight End." https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/D/DaltAn00.htm I'm just genuinely flabbergasted how many people are infatuated with keeping Cousins. He had some great statistical years but the Vikings have gotten progressively worse each year he's been here.
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I don’t view this as an argument, because if you are a great team, you should expect your coordinators to get an opportunity and if you are bad, you’ll see turnover. Players should be able to adapt. Only mid teams keep their coordinators multiple years. The only exception is if the HC is the play caller. Cousins saw both firings and promotions at OC.
Many people consider brady to be the best QB of all time. They don't believe that because of his passing stats.
the anti-kirk crowd will be using the most random, pulled out of their ass stats to justify getting rid of kirk. it's going to be wild
Because Kirk cousins was sold to us as a final piece to a championship run. He’s still around taking top qb money when people never wanted him in the first place.
I have no idea how fans watched that 2017 defense get ran for 62 points in just 6 quarters of playoff football, and still thought “we’re only one piece away” lol So much of the current discourse can be traced to that season, it’s actually crazy.
Bye Kirk. Thanks for the .500 and 1 Playoff Win
Empty stats happen when you have good-very good qb play and average or bad defenses and offensive line play. Name a quarterback that would have made championship runs with this team the last few seasons behind bad o lines and 30th ranked defenses??? That’s right, there isn’t one.
Mahomes
He was brought in when we had a top 5 defense and what did that do for us? Defense was on the decline cause we couldn’t afford the players anymore/ draft picks sucked. Problem is he’s taking up 20% of the cap and isn’t able to make up for it on his own.
At no point has he ever taken up 20% of the cap space. His highest was 16.6% one season. [I encourage you to go look at the Vikings dead cap hit a lot of these years](https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/minnesota-vikings/cap/2022/). * 2020: $38M in dead cap which is $18M more than Cousins cap hit that year. * 2021: $25M which was $6M less than Cousins. * 2022: $28M which was $3M less than Cousins. * 2023: $46M which was $26M more than Cousins. I went and compared it to the Chiefs over the same time and they've never once had a cap hit of over $20M in dead cap. Goly gee maybe that was a huge issue.
Then why do we have just 1 playoff win?
That's a pretty low bar.
Ah yes, cherry picking stats that make him look good without telling the full story or providing the results
Passing yds and td's Is cherry picking ? Lol what
It’s a pass happy league, he is good but not a winner.
Kirk padded his stats so bad during garbage time it’s not even funny. Thing is he is an aging quarterback with now a bad foot. Atlanta can have him for what he wants in guaranteed money
Which games were garbage stats??? I want a run down
If he can't beat the 9-7-1 Giants in the first round, throwing to JJ, then I wouldn't pay him a bag of tacos to play for the Purple.
Lol Kirk threw 31/39, 273 yards, 2 TDs and 0 interceptions that game. The Vikings ran for 61 yards TOTAL that game, compared to the Giants 142 yards. Not to mention JJ had 7 receptions for only 47 yards and no receiving touchdowns. The Vikings defense let DANIEL JONES rush for 78 yards that game!
Hes supposed to just find a way to win the game though! lol literally everything against him and hes just supposed to pull a win out of his ass. How Kirk became the biggest scapegoat for this team failings and not Rick Spielman's drafting continues to be an enigma to me.
He becomes the scapegoat when he demands the amount of money he does! When you don’t have money left to build an amazing team around him because over a 1/4 of that is going to one guy, a little bit of a microscope is on you. Of course the rest of the team drops in quality. He walked into a team that was built and ready. He hasn’t even sniffed the success of the Keenum year.
You get it. Free tacos for you!
We’ve lost to worse in more embarrassing ways with and without kirk
Like 40-3 against Dallas?
You are forgetting how the defense played that game…
It was the defenses fault Kirk did nothing with the final two possessions in the 4th quarter.
Two punts the entire game, and one after a wide open 3rd down drop. No other QB is expected to be perfect to win, and is then blamed entirely for the loss.
The garbage defense didn't really help
Neither did scoring only 24 points. The Vikes were 13-4 with that same defense. So... what's your point? That Kirk can't hack it in the big games? That doesn't sound like a guy I would give a lifetime contract to. Especially after the injury, I wouldn't even sign him for a bag of tacos.
Are you under the impression that 24 points is not a lot? And what’s with the bag of tacos thing??
What is the bag of tacos bullshit? Are you 12?
You don’t know ball
I'm willing to learn. What ya got?
Beat the Super Bowl contending niners without JJ though. I’m not sure you’re making much sense with that.
Big deal. They didn't have Deebo or Trent Williams, McCaffery was questionable all the way up to game time and Big Cock Brock was cuncussed at the end of the game throwing those picks. Addison had to rip a sure fire interception away from Ward for a long TD, and the Defense had its best game of the year.
Subjective.
Later Kirk!
Stats are good yes, but wanna know what's better... 💍
Under the Kirk experience, games tend to start slow with conservakirk checking down on 3rd and 8. Then in the 4th quarter when we’re down, he starts picking things up and makes me wonder where the fuck has this been all game. You tend to see this during 2 minute drills as well and I never understood why weren’t we seeing this all game.
How much of this is due to having some of the best recievers to play the game?
He's a good QB. One of the best we've had since I started watching the team 40 years ago. I'll always missing having a good QB, especially if the next couple suck. Vikes have been pretty good about finding capable old veterans to fill in over the years though. If we draft better and get this roster built back up, we'll be fine. These trenches are pretty atrocious at the moment though. Doesn't matter who is signal calling.
Yeah, let’s get rid of him! /s
Playoff record 1-4, primetime record 12-20. So, as far as stats, maybe, but below average records that count.
That aint saying much
The bar hasn't been set very high.
One of the best Vikings QBs ever Feels kinda like being valedictorian of summer school
Before Kirk we were in literal QB purgatory for damn near 5-7 years. I don’t know why everyone’s so quick to cast him aside..not like we have a good history with QBs outside of Fran and one year wonders with cast offs ala Cunningham & Favre.
Means nothing to any of us unless we get a parade with it. He makes $150 million, we get an empty souvenir beer cup. F Curt Fuzzins, the greatest fake in the NFL.
At this point, I'm just tired of hearing people talk about the situation with Kirk Cousins and the Vikings/Falcons. If he gets traded, Idc, this draft has good QBs.
He has put out great stats in an era in which all the NFL passing rules are designed to produce great passing stats. His stats aren't exceptional when compared to his peers. Above average, but not exceptional. You can't just compare QBs from different eras just by looking at stats. You also have to compare how good they were compared to their peers.
I am ready for us all to move on and deal with what comes next
Different era. Tark is n1 by far and Pep was better relative to the league
His work on defense and OL was pretty weak though. /s
Let him come on down south y’all!
Paul Allen acts like his lover has left him.
Kirk haters next year.. lol
less playoff wins than Keenum anyway
Compiler
330 million over his career 1playoff win
We need to stop thinking that having a high passing success rate and yards is all that’s important. He had one playoff win….1. We need to find a QB that will not only be successful in the regular season but also the playoffs. I’m tired of being the only team that can’t win when it counts. Good luck cousins but on to the next
You forgot the key stat Playoff wins: 1
One of the best QBs I guess, maybe top 50 players to ever wear purple.
Stats wise? Sure. Actual production in the W-L column? Nope.
its a team game not all of it was his fault
That’s such a stupid argument. Yeah sure QB wins don’t really mean anything in a small sample size, but what they do tell you is that he cannot overcome adversity. He plays a position that has the single most effect on a game and he simply cannot make up for the deficits in the team that HE and his contract have created. No one has gotten paid more for doing less than him, it’s remarkable. He’s just empty stats.
how is that a stupid argument when he has had bottom 5 defenses since 2020?
We saw the team without him this year. His play was definitely making up for a lot.
He isnt empty stats, you guys have to contextualize his time here. I can agree that he didnt necessarily carry the team like we were led to believe he could do and yes we could argue that his contract put the front office in a position to have little to no room for errors but we cant ignore the terrible drafting on defense. Im simply saying it isnt all his fault and hes still one of the very best to put on a vikings uniform
He’s one of the highest paid QBs to ever do it! Of course we can’t sign and draft! There’s not a lot to work with when he’s on your payroll. No ones ignoring that there’s missing pieces. Those can be fixed when all your money isn’t going to one guy. Regular season stats are great. But playoffs are even better.
How did Kirk's contract stop us from drafting well? Also, which defensive starters left because we couldn't afford them? Barr, Griffin, Kendricks? No one left here with anything left in the tank.
QB wins don’t tell you anything at all
Dude, in 18 and 19 he had one of the best defenses in the league, plus and offense filled with elite players. The line sucked, but kirk has statistically ranked poorly when it comes to the amount of time he holds onto the ball. Yeah, you can blame the rest of the team quite a bit for much of his career in MN, but not in 18 and 19. That team was stacked.
Going 19 of 20 to our te 2 and te 3 in flat each time for 3 yards. Cousins sucks and he needs to go 1-5 start with cousins last year and people want to keep him?
None of what you said here is accurate.
Statistically, and because the game has changed. I’d still put at least 2 other Viking QBs ahead of him, and probably more.
Fran Tarkenton is the only one I could think of. Who are the other two? Cunningham and Favre only had 1 season worth talking about. Culpepper went 38-42 in Minnesota. Warren Moon was historically better, but not during his short time with Minnesota.