Kirk Cousins Wasn't Sharp vs. the Jets, But His Toughness Was on Full Display
Kirk Cousins didn't have his best stuff on Sunday. Normally one of the NFL's most accurate quarterbacks, he looked a bit off throughout the afternoon, although the Jets' elite defense certainly had something to do with that.
Cousins started the game with five consecutive incompletions. He finished just 21 of 35 for 173 yards and a touchdown, his second lowest passing yardage total this season. He missed a few throws that he normally makes, including sailing one beyond a wide open T.J. Hockenson during the Vikings' mess of a third quarter.
"That was just a miss," he said after the game. "Gave it too much."
What Cousins may have lacked in sharpness and accuracy on Sunday, he made up for in toughness. The Vikings' veteran signal caller stood strong in the pocket against one of the league's most talented and physical defensive fronts, ultimately doing enough to ensure his team left the building with its tenth win of the season.
Cousins was pressured on 37 percent of his dropbacks. He was hit eight times, sometimes in violent fashion. But Cousins is one of the most durable quarterbacks in the league, having never missed an NFL game due to injury. He showed that against the Jets, playing through some pain to lead the Vikings to 27 points against a defense that had surrendered 14.4 points per game over its previous eight.
"I spend of lot of time working with different body work people here in the Twin Cities on a weekly basis, sometimes a daily basis," Cousins said. "I think just having a lot of prayers and a lot of good people working on you, working with you to put you back together after each game — that's what I ask them to do. I say, 'Hey, I'm in a car accident every week, and you've got to put me back together on Monday and on Friday,' and it's kind of like getting an oil change. You go back and you get put back together and then you get ready for the next car accident."
Cousins' toughness was on full display throughout this game, but never more than on a two-play sequence in the second quarter. The Vikings led 10-3 and were looking to add to that total. Facing a third-and-9 from his own 27, Cousins received a shotgun snap and looked to pass. Seeing nothing, he pumped once and bailed out of the pocket, turning upfield and sprinting towards the line to gain. Unsure of whether he had picked up the first down or not, Cousins put his shoulder down and took a big-time shot from linebacker C.J. Mosley. First down.
"He got banged around like a pinball at the end of the play!" CBS play-by-play commentator Ian Eagle exclaimed.
"I didn't know where the line was quite to gain, and so I just felt I gotta get every yard I can," Cousins said. "So tried to make sure I gave it everything I had. I don't know if I was already past it or not, but that was my mindset, was just, 'Let's get everything we can here.'"
On the very next play, head coach Kevin O'Connell called a play-action pass where one of the primary options is a deep ball to Jalen Reagor. Cousins faked a shotgun handoff to Alexander Mattison, moved back and to his right to buy time, and saw Reagor get good leverage on safety Lamarcus Joyner with his route. Cousins also saw that defensive tackle Nathan Shepherd had gotten away from Garrett Bradbury and was rapidly bearing down on him.
Knowing he was going to get popped, Cousins still had to step into the throw to get it 50 yards downfield for a big play.
"He’s the f***ing man, sorry for my language," Brian O'Neill said. "He’s a beast. He was hanging in there all day. We probably could’ve done a better job on some of his dropbacks, but he hangs in there. He’s the ultimate competitor, the ultimate team leader. He has my respect for years and years."
"Kirk is a dog" is how Camryn Bynum described it. "He has that mentality. He’s going to win the game."
"I think his toughness and his durability over a long period of time really speaks for itself," O'Connell said.
Mattison ran for a touchdown on that series, which wouldn't have happened without those two gritty plays from Cousins. That gave the Vikings a 17-3 lead.
For much of the game, though, Cousins couldn't quite find his usual rhythm. He sailed a throw too high for Adam Thielen later in the first half, forcing the Vikings to settle for a field goal. He missed a wide open Hockenson in the third quarter. Two plays later, he threw a ball a bit behind Justin Jefferson, though it could've been caught. He was sacked twice.
"Their rush made it uncomfortable in the pocket, so even if they're not hitting you, you feel like they're affecting your accuracy, they're affecting your timing," Cousins said. "There were a couple (where) my feet were ahead of the play, so I'm hitching and my feet are telling me to release it, but the play hasn't really developed yet, and so some of that's press coverage that slows down the route."
The Jets crept back into the game with field goal after field goal, cutting the Vikings' lead to five. The offense needed to get something going.
That's when Cousins led a seven-play, 75-yard drive in the fourth quarter, capping it with a difficult touchdown pass to Jefferson to give his team some breathing room.
Cousins didn't have his best game, but he exemplified toughness and perseverance and came through when his team needed it. In the end, it resulted in another victory.
"Tough times don't last, tough people do," Cousins said while breaking down the team in the locker room after the game.
"It's just a mantra I've kind of lived by my whole pro football career that started with Mike Shanahan," he told reporters. "I believe strongly in that. In this pro football journey, you just have to live that again and again. Tough times don't last, tough people do. I felt like this game, in a way, was a little bit of a microcosm of that."
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