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Under duress, Vikings’ Cousins answers $84 million question
NEW ORLEANS – Someone mentioned to Kirk Cousins that his clutch throw to Kyle Rudolph in overtime Jan. 5 marked his first touchdown pass all season while “under duress.”
I’m not so sure about that. On the 4-yard throw to Rudolph, the Saints went for broke, bringing an all-out blitz. He had to release the football on “Two, Mississippi,” or else. That’s duress.
But really, it seems every pass Cousins has thrown this season, like last season, touchdown or not, has come under duress. Maybe not heavy-blitz duress, but serious pressure nonetheless.
Cousins is the $84 million (fully guaranteed) quarterback who was brought to Minnesota as the envisioned missing piece for a championship unit. Until Sunday, when the Vikings stunned the Saints and silenced Who Dat Nation with a 26-20 overtime zinger, Cousins had never won a playoff game.
If the Vikings didn’t beat the Saints, regardless of how it went down, chances are it would have been blamed on Cousins. That’s what $84 million can buy. A lot of ridicule, fair or not.
That’s why, even with a monster game from Dalvin Cook and a defensive line effort that threw Drew Brees around and off-track, Cousins is the face of this “Minnesota Surprise” against the heavily favored Saints.
“It’s not right that records get attached to the quarterback,” Rudolph told USA TODAY Sports. “There are 10 other guys on the field. I’m so happy for him to play well again in a big game. But this time, the other 10 guys on offense stepped up and played well also.”
Cousins tried to downplay the significance of his first playoff victory. It was just his second postseason start. With Washington, he (and they) lost to Aaron Rodgers (and them) to close the 2015 season. Last season, his first as a Viking, they missed the playoffs.
So, naturally, the quarterback talked up the defense, special teams and coaching.
“We probably had 30, 40 rushing attempts,” Cousins said. Cook had 28 of the 40 runs. “There’s a whole lot of reasons we won the game. Does the quarterback play a role in that? Yes, but it was a team win.”
Still, it was a Cousins win, too. Remember, even his bigtime receivers – Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen – have sometimes looked at him sideways. Last season, Thielen and Cousins had a heated sideline exchange, apparently over the Pro Bowl receiver’s specialty, routerunning. Earlier this season, after a loss at Chicago, Thielen lamented that even with the presence of Cook, “you have to be able to hit the deep balls.” Ouch.
Diggs was so disgusted early in the season there were rumors he wanted out – and sure enough there were everythingis-cool-now assurances after the receiver came back to work. On Jan. 5, when Diggs was still waiting on his first target midway through the third quarter, he chucked his helmet during a sideline tantrum and had to be consoled by teammates.
Heat-of-the-moment frustration, Diggs explained when asked about it by USA TODAY Sports.
And a layer of the pressure, uh, duress, with which Cousins operates.
Yet still: With the game on the line and the Vikings winning the overtime coin toss, Cousins did his part to ensure that Drew Brees never touched the ball again. He hit Diggs for a 10-yard completion on a third-down slant, then connected with Thielen for a 43-yard completion that set up the short gamewinner to Rudolph.
Yes, that Thielen. The one who talked about needing to hit the deep ones. With the season on the line, Cousins was money.
“We know what type of guy he is,” Thielen said. “We know his talent.”
They also know the pressure he carries just because. Cousins is in the second year of a threeyear deal that played the market like a drum … but also pushed the Vikings into a corner for giving up so much. This was the franchise that once saw Herschel Walker as a missing piece to a championship – and it turned out he was the missing piece to collecting a bushel of draft picks that helped Dallas win multiple Super Bowls.
Cousins still has more to prove – have you seen his record on “Monday Night Football”? – but that’s always been the case. He came into the NFL as a fourth-round pick from Michigan State, then turned out as more productive than the quarterback Washington drafted No. 2 overall, Robert Griffin III.
He became famous for his “You like that?” catchphrase after his emotional reaction to a big Washington win. But that turned out to be a curse after Dan Snyder’s franchise printed the slogan on towels distributed to the thousands of fans who showed up at FedExField for Cousins’ first playoff start.
There was no slogan, no towels and not even expectations this time coming in. In the emotion of the postgame locker room, however, Cousins was caught on video yelling, “You like that?”
Last week, the team’s ownership put out a statement declaring that the ownership wanted coach Mike Zimmer and GM Rick Spielman back, regardless of what happened in the wildcard round. The Vikings were the NFL’s biggest underdogs, by as much as eight points, on wild-card weekend.
Those are Kirk Cousins-type odds. Especially when under duress.