Can we trade Cousins?

The Minnesota Vikings Have a Kirk Cousins Problem

I wasn't sure where to post this but, since this is the latest "Cousins Sucks" thread, I decided to put it here. This team is demoralized and Thielen is already making chippy comments alluding to Cousins' performance and we are only just past week 4. This is probably the most brutal article on Cousins that I have read so far (and I have, by now, read a lot of these opinions on this subject). Quotes from the article:

"Cousins is approaching the midway point of that contract, and it's become obvious he'll never provide the Vikings with a positive return on their dubious investment."

"teams quarterbacked by Cousins are now 4-27 against opponents with winning records"

"The Vikes hardly needed him in their two September wins. At home and favored in both cases, they rode running back Dalvin Cook. . .But on the road against higher-quality opponents with substantially higher stakes, Cousins has again failed to be a hero"

"It's the same horror film, and the most terrifying part is it probably can't end until that boondoggle contract expires in the 2021 offseason.

Sunday's performance was actually worse than the numbers indicate."

"He was under constant pressure, but he failed to adjust or improve his reaction time, and he was slow to pick up on the Chicago pass rush for all four quarters"

". . .It wasn't an easy throw, but one you've got to make more often than not when you're the seventh-highest-paid player in NFL history."

"He's painfully inconsistent, and the mistakes he makes routinely in the first three quarters usually leave him and his team with no margin for error when games are on the line."

"Essentially, a quarter of the way through Cousins' second season with the Vikings, he's provided substantial proof that his dud first season was no fluke. Fans have already soured on the $84 million man, and his comically low pass attempt total suggests the Vikings coaching staff has also lost faith."

"He's the highest-paid player of all time who hasn't been to a Super Bowl (he hasn't won a playoff game)"

". . .now it's apparent that Minnesota's $84 million experiment is backfiring."

I was only commenting on the "window" reference.  Folks seem to think we've assembled this powerful roster that has a limited window of opportunity to win a Lombardi.  Well, I'm here to tell everybody, that based upon recent games this is a myth.  We're really just not very good.   Our Defense is weak.  The whole is less than the sum of the parts.  Some would blame this on coaching (and they might be 100% correct).  We let a backup QB, playing behind an injured line, on an average offense control the field.  I recall one good play by one of our DBs (Waynes).  I saw our shutdown CB constantly being beat.  If there was ever a "window," it's shut down, nailed shut, blacked out, gone...…  Kirk has certainly earned his criticism, but even if we had Tom Brady at QB, this D just plain sucks.  

Cant we BENCH him!!!!!

In short, no. We cannot trade him. And even benching him isn't that appealing given Mannion or Sloter were our options. He's the guy for now, for better or worse.

(starting to feel more and more like WORSE)

After another strip sack, I'll bench him myself!  

That is true, but the caveat with those stats is that Mannion has had just a single NFL start in his career, so looking at his rating means next to nothing. 

I can't find any sites out there that chronicle preseason stats from 2017 and before, so here's his preseason numbers for 2018 and 2019:

2018 Rams: 24/46 (52.2%) 168/1/2 (yards/TDs/ints), 3.7 Y/A

2019 Vikings: 24/36 (66.7%) 247/2/1, 6.9 Y/A

Here are some more notes on Mannion:


Preseason 2018



Offseason 2017

I'm starting to think that myself. I know Mannion might not be very good, but is it possible for him to be worse than Cousins right now? We all thought the same about Keenum when Bradford went down and he had a much bigger body of work to go by, but then we went 11-1 with him. I don't see that happening with Mannion, but Mannion might be a better game manager who turns the ball over less. Plus Mannion didn't look all that bad in preseason. He lacks mobility, but he did much better than I thought he would. Cousins is a complete dumpster fire who isn't hitting receivers downfield even when he has time.