2019-20 Deep Ball Project

11. Kirk Cousins (Minnesota Vikings)




The NFL’s reigning dad joke champion is also quite possibly the league’s most polarizing quarterback. You either think he’s a borderline top 10 quarterback or a guy that’s virtually wasting the precious careers of Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen.

Regardless, though he has issues with missing open receivers (finishing 20th in accuracy in 2019), Cousins has managed to do well enough in deep accuracy during his time in Minnesota. In addition to just barely finishing outside of the top 10, Cousins threw the second most touchdowns downfield with a whopping 9 of them. Incredibly, four of them were thrown outside of the pocket.

My biggest issue with Cousins is that he has left a lot of plays on the field when targeting Diggs and Thielen, but he appeared to improve his connection with them to an extent in 2019, leaving less deep passes on the turf. Ultimately, there isn’t a single statistic where he did awful in accuracy wise.

Areas that Cousins’ accuracy impressed include on throws of 41+ (3rd) and outside the pocket (5th, though he had a larger sample size than the four quarterbacks above him combined). He made the cut as a top 10 passer throwing to the middle and right of the field, tied for second in edge pressure accuracy, and was also sixth in tight window accuracy as well.

Overall, things could definitely improve and probably should if Cousins wants to see extended time in Minneapolis, but things looked pretty good from his deep accuracy.

Best Throw (Wild Card Round at New Orleans, Adam Thielen)




Duh. The biggest throw of Cousins’ career was a dime to Adam Thielen, and ultimately helped secure the first postseason victory of his career.

When it comes to the most exciting parts of football, few things can compare to the downfield pass. The simple act of quarterbacks launching the ball into the sky like a cannon can be downright mesmerizing at times, so it's no surprise that some of the most memorable plays of the 2019 season happened to be on deep throws.

When it comes to measuring a player's quality on these throws, people seem to be split. Some favor completion percentage, touchdowns, yards, or deep passer rating. All these uses are perfectly fine, but I wanted to know how accurate quarterbacks were on these plays.

As a result of these thoughts, I decided to create what I like to call The Deep Ball Project, which takes a look at the accuracy of quarterbacks on throws of 21-plus air yards past the line of scrimmage. Recently I released the sixth annual edition of the project, which covers the 2019 season (which you can check here and here), and for the third time Football Outsiders has kindly allowed me to write a follow-up.

For as long as I've written these articles, I've had various questions on what I consider to be an accurate deep pass, measured by Accuracy Percentage (which differentiates from the normally used completion percentage in that it looks the accuracy of throws regardless of whether they're caught or not). Obviously, straight-up drops are counted as accurate passes, which in turn boost the quarterback's accuracy percentage, but it doesn't stop there.

Certain sideline/back-shoulder plays where the receiver can't get two feet in bounds (with varying adjustments), most Hail Marys that reach the end zone, and certain plays where the pass was disrupted (depending on the effort from the receiver at the catch point) can also help boost a quarterback's accuracy percentage. Going further, I use Accurate Incompletions to label these plays.

On the flip side, Inaccurate Completions are counted on plays where the pass was completed but wasn't necessarily accurate. These include plays where the receiver was forced to make an unnecessary adjustment on the ball (See also: DeAndre Hopkins for the first four years of his career), but in the latest edition of the Deep Ball Project these were less frequent because I found fewer plays of this category. As a result, no quarterback has more than a few inaccurate completions from 2019.

A question I've gotten occasionally is how air yards fit into the equation on red zone plays. Any throw 20 yards or less from the end zone does not qualify. These are throws of 21-plus yards in the air past the line of scrimmage, including the beginning of the end zone.

As with last year's edition of the Deep Ball Project, accuracy on throws from the left, middle, and right areas of the field are included as stats, as are distances of the field (21-25, 26-30, 31-35, 36-40, and 41-plus air yards); pressure splits (clean vs. pressure); open- and tight-window throws; air yards; and yards after the catch (YAC).

New to this year's edition are under center vs. shotgun; throws inside and outside the pocket; and throws against interior and edge pressure.

Keep in mind that more accurate deep passers aren't always better deep passers (and that there are numerous outliers in these projects, so certain quarterbacks don't have sustainable success on deep accuracy). Accuracy percentage docks for misses but doesn't grade poor throws, and decision-making isn't factored into it either. I use it because it's a more convenient metric for me to use than yards, touchdowns, completions, attempts, etc.

Lastly, throwaways and plays nullified by penalties are excluded from deep-pass charting.