DN: Kirk Cousins Prepping to be a Play-Maker

If you were following social media Monday night, you probably noticed fans tweeting about Lamar Jackson as he rumbled for 124 yards and two rushing touchdowns in the Baltimore Ravens win over the Cleveland Browns. “Lamar Cousins,” they called him, in deference to the mobility of Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins.

OK, that was a lie. We’re not quite there yet with Cousins’ newfound mobility. Fans may continue, tongue-in-cheek, to call Cousins “Kirk Vick” or “Kirk Jackson,” but it’s never going to be the other way around.

That being said, in the bowels of Pro Football Focus analytics, on the morning of Dec. 15, there is a tasty, hilarious treat for those willing to do the digging. If one were to peruse the website’s rushing grades for quarterbacks, they would see Cousins’ name in seventh with a robust 81.2 grade — one rung above Mr. Jackson himself.

For those continuing to read through a fit of laughter, yes, this is a ridiculous stat when you consider that Jackson was sixth in the league in rushing last year and sits 10th this year as a quarterback. But there is, perhaps, one true and informative takeaway from this statistical outlier. It’s that Cousins has suddenly become a high-efficiency scrambler in a small sample size, which on Pro Football Focus, apparently, is enough to catapult you above the league’s finest rushing quarterback.

Eliminate kneel-downs and aborted snaps and Cousins has 18 rushes for 134 yards on the year, a 7.4 yards-per-carry average that is the best of his career and by far his most efficient in Minnesota.

Its clear Cousins thinks of himself as a different quarterback than Tom Brady or Philip Rivers who rarely consider leaving the safety of the pocket. It was hard to believe until this season, but Cousins has shown enough wheels this season to trust that he’s turned a corner. In his last three games alone, Cousins has shown increased confidence with nine carries (non-kneel-down) for 73 yards, better than 8.0 yards per carry.

Presumably, Cousins will be the team’s starter heading into 2021, and if at age 32 he’s still able to improve his playmaking ability, that’s good news for the Vikings.