Inside The Vikings

Kirk Cousins' Huge Second Half vs. Colts Earns Him NFC Offensive Player of the Week

Cousins threw for 417 yards and 4 touchdowns after halftime in the Vikings' comeback win.
Will Ragatz|
Kirk Cousins' Huge Second Half vs. Colts Earns Him NFC Offensive Player of the Week
Kirk Cousins' Huge Second Half vs. Colts Earns Him NFC Offensive Player of the Week

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Minnesota Vikings

When the Vikings went into halftime on Saturday trailing 33-0 at home against a bad Colts team, could anyone have imagined Kirk Cousins would end up winning NFC offensive player of the week?

At that point, Cousins was 6 of 12 for 43 yards and a pick-six. The massive deficit wasn't really his fault — there was a blocked punt, a Dalvin Cook fumble, a miscommunication with Reagor on the interception, and two 4th and 1 failures that were taken out of his hands — but he wasn't off to a strong start, either.

Things changed dramatically after halftime, as you know by now. The Vikings rallied for 36 points in the second half, 29 of them coming in a 14-minute span starting late in the third quarter. They forced overtime. They won the game in the final seconds of OT, completing the largest comeback in the history of the NFL.

Cousins was at the forefront of it all. He completed 28 of 42 passes for 417 yards and four touchdowns in the second half and OT, leading the Vikings with poise, accuracy, and sharp decision-making. The veteran ended up with a career-high 460 passing yards, and he was, in fact, named the conference's offensive player of the week.

"What I thought he did a great job of was understanding the necessity of making some plays there in the second half, where he either stood in there or moved within that pocket to create the chance to generate another completion, getting back to his third or fourth progression," Kevin O'Connell said. "And then when he was able to generate some of those explosives down the field, just having awareness of coverage. Although he treated each snap as its own, I thought he did a great job of using the previous snaps and intel that he could receive throughout the game to apply it to the next snap. So it’s that good balance veteran quarterbacks can do."

Cousins sparked things with a 63-yard completion to K.J. Osborn in the third quarter and didn't look back. He wound up throwing touchdown passes to four different receivers, and tied the game with a two-point conversion to a fifth different target. Although some plays — like Cook's touchdown on a screen pass — involved a lot of yards after catch, Cousins stepped up with accurate passes to all three levels during the comeback. As O'Connell said, what was most impressive was Cousins' ability to go through his progressions and make the right read on seemingly every play.

This is the seventh time Cousins has won NFC offensive player of the week, but just the third time he's done so with the Vikings (he won it twice in 2020). He's the second Vikings player to win the honor this season, after Justin Jefferson in that insane Week 10 win in Buffalo. The Vikings have also had a defensive player of the week (Za'Darius Smith, Week 8) and three special teams players of the week (Greg Joseph, Week 4; Ryan Wright, Week 6; Kene Nwangwu, Week 12).

Cousins got off to a slow statistical start this season while he learned a new offense, but continually showed up when it mattered most to help the Vikings pull off narrow victories. Now he's starting to really find a groove at the right time. Per the Vikings, Cousins "has thrown for a league-best passing yards (1,357), the second-most passing touchdowns (10) and the fifth-best completion percentage (69.5%)" over the past four weeks.

"I’ve been really proud of the way Kirk’s played and responded to some tough circumstances and leading from the front and just being able to play in critical moments at such a high level," O'Connell said. "You don’t do a lot of things we’ve been able to do — coming from behind and doing some of those things — without a guy like Kirk playing quarterback for you."

If the Vikings are going to make a deep run in the playoffs, they'll need Cousins to keep playing at a high level.

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Will Ragatz
WILL RAGATZ

Will Ragatz is a senior writer for Vikings On SI, who also covers the Twins, Timberwolves, Gophers, and other Minnesota teams. He is a credentialed Minnesota Vikings beat reporter, covering the team extensively at practices, games and throughout the NFL draft and free agency period. Ragatz attended Northwestern University, where he studied at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. During his time as a student, he covered Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball for SB Nation’s Inside NU, eventually serving as co-editor-in-chief in his junior year. In the fall of 2018, Will interned in Sports Illustrated’s newsroom in New York City, where he wrote articles on Major League Baseball, college football, and college basketball for SI.com.

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