Vikings 2022 Depth Chart (To Be Updated)

In what years has Tom Brady won the Superbowl and also been statistically the best QB in the NFL?

Many of Cousins' stats are down specifically because of Kevin O'Connell. He's throwing the ball way more often because Kevin can't get the run game going and even when it was clicking earlier in the year he would abandon it too early.

Krauser has pointed this out multiple times, Cleveland and Ingram (and Bradbury before he got hurt) have the most true pass blocking reps in all of the NFL. That's means more attempts where a variety of negative outcomes can happen.

It's pure logic. When the opponent's DC doesn't fear your rushing attack and also knows you're going to pass a lot that makes playcalling easier. Any HOF Offensive Lineman will tell you they prefer run blocking because they get to be the aggressor and wear the D-Line down. When they are constantly being attacked by the pass rush they will make more mistakes and get worn down.

By that same exercise in logic Kirk is also going to make more mistakes. And yet despite the numbers being down he's led the Team to an NFL single season record of wins in one score games. The knock on Kirk has always been that he comes up small in the big moments, be it the 4th Quarter, Prime Time or the Playoffs. While subsequently paddling his stats when games are out or reach.

Cousins has destroyed the 4th Quarter narrative. Yes, he's had a bad stretch of games lately. Every QB goes through that including Mahomes, Allen and Burrow. And by the way, each of those QBs has lost to a much worse Team than Minnesota has this year.

Granted, Prime Time Kirk is still a thing. And the Playoffs have yet to be addressed. But he's rallied the Team over and over again in a 1 Dimensional Offense with one of the worst Defenses in the League and a Kicker with the worst rating. And a Rookie RG. While relentlessly targeting a generational Wide Receiver instead of 'going where the read takes me' as he so infamously said last year.

People b*tched about Kirk paddling his stats in garbage time and now are b*tching that his stats are down. Only in Minnesota...

But let's have a larger conversation about opportunity verus cost. The Defense is a mess. Likely two years away. If you bring in a Rookie QB in the offseason that is truly projected to be the Franchise QB of the Future it is going to cost a ton of Draft Capital to move up high enough to get him. Without said Draft Capital you are now relegated to Free Agency as the primary way to inject talent into this Defense. That will further delay the rebuild since you just took away a major avenue for rebuilding it.

And this is hardly the vaunted Class everyone thought it would be. Levis, Richardson, Van Dyke and others regressed this year instead of getting better. I'm not gambling the next 5+ years of the franchise on anyone save for Bryce Young and CJ Stroud. And neither of those guys are close to a supposed 'sure thing' ala Trevor Lawrence.

And even if you did somehow land one of those kids they'd be paired with a garbage Defense for several years of the valuable Rookie Contract.

A Cousins extension will lower his cost to outside the Top 10. He's held Minnesota for ransom for years but his current deal was always set up to bail now or extend him for two more years at a price that keeps him below his market value in year 1. So he's become willing to do what helps the Team instead of just himself. He's playing at a Top 7-8 level in terms of results. He'll likely get paid like a Top 12ish QB. That's value.

And meanwhile, Kwesi didn't gut the Draft Capital that he will need, along with some savvy Free Agent signing, to fix this atrocious Defense.

But: he will regress, "in terms of results", next year. Many of us - me, maybe you - argued that Case Keenum would almost certainly regress to the mean after 2017 (and he did). It's damn sure just as likely of Cousins' (and Vikings') 4th-quarter comebacks and one-score wins. Pretty ironic that we went after Cousins because our last QB was a "horseshoe in his pocket" player that the coaches and ownership didn't believe in, but now Cousins has become a horseshoe player and the team will tell us to believe.

The way games were won this year is anomalous and unsustainable. I have enjoyed the ride but reality is setting in now and there is no way the 2022 Viking success can be repeated in 2023. Their fundamentals (line play on both sides) are horrific.

I do expect the owners will push to extend Cousins. They will see the 12 or 13 wins, not that 11 of them were by the skin of our teeth. When the Vikings' Normal Luck (bad) returns from its 2022 vacation and we're suffering through 12 or 13 losses next year, they might look for a change. But I guess we will have extended Kirk Cousins through 2025 by that time.

No, that's not a Minnesota thing. Just imagine if Kirk was the Eagles' QB! It's more of a narrative where we've seen Kirk defenders no longer care about his stats and Kirk haters no longer care about his W-L record.

If it was a Minnesota thing, explain to me the Twins... they have fielded so many uncompetitive teams, made stupid moves, and somehow lost 18 playoff games in a row and people act like things are sunny all the time, the team doesn't receive close to enough heat from the fans and certainly reporters/beatwriters.


His 2023 cap hit is designed to beg for another extension, and seeing how Kirk got extensions in 2020 and 2022 offseasons, he's getting one this year unless KAM/KOC are totally against it.

I like to see O'Connell take a swing at a highly touted QB coming out of college soon. If not this upcoming draft maybe Caleb Williams from USC in 2024.

You bet. As far as comparison between Keenum and Cousins, please note I said Case did regress from his lucky season to a status more typical of his skills. I don't think their skills are the same, but I will stand by this: the 2022 Vikings season, including Kirk's heroic 4th-quarter results, have been driven by a lot of elements that are "good luck" and not sustainable. A subpar kicker nailing a 61-yard game winning FG?? An MVP-level QB fumbling on the goal line when his team had the game won? That JJ catch in the Bills game?

You're crediting Cousins for this winning record. No question he has played a part. But I credit an amazing level of turnovers - incredibly timely ones at that - at least as much. Harrison Smith has matched his career high in INTs in 2022. But how much longer can he save games for us? If we are counting on this defense being able to maintain its generation of gamesaving turnovers and last-minute stops, can you really expect that after the team throws aside Ed Donatell, which seems a certainty? A new DC may reduce the yards and points given up, but will the team still have that "magic touch"?

Cousins' performance has still been unpredictable and inconsistent this year. Fact is, his near-absence in early quarters of games has created the need for these comeback efforts. Are we really just going to spot most of our opponents an early lead and expect to consistently overcome that?

You put a lot of this on KOC's play-calling, and you also predict he will correct that, either through self-assessment or the intervention of his GM. Wow, that's the kind of offseason optimism we were fed all through the Spielman/Zimmer era. I was not a fan of either of those but in all fairness they both had more of a track record than KOC or KAM. Why would Kevin go rebuild himself this offseason? As the season starts to recede in the rearview mirror, details fall away and the "headlines" seem larger: he's a rookie HC who led his team to 12 (maybe 13) wins! His team set a record for winning one-score games! He won the first division title in 5 years (and clinched a month before the season ended)! According to all team reporters and the owner and GM, he corrected the "bad culture" that was allegedly plaguing this franchise. And according to many (you included) he turned Kirk Cousins into a winner and hero to his teammates. Do you really expect him to go off and do one of those offseason self-improvement efforts Zimmer did every year? IMO it's more likely KOC goes on a speaking tour to brag about his amazing success.

And if Kwesi does try to help, can he? I reread your post and all I can find to build my confidence in KAM is that "he's analytical". Well, what does that provide? He's going to pore over stats and trends, OK good. How will he interpret that pile of data? I'm not calling for his head, but he doesn't really have a track record to instill confidence in his results. He probably pored over stats about the players he drafted, but all we know is that he punted away the #12 pick, drafted 2 DBs who weren't winning jobs even before they got hurt, and he didn't notice Andrew Booth was so frequently injured that half the teams in the league had him off their boards or moved him down to day 3. Yes, just one draft, it could look better in a few years, but for now it provides no positive proof of his ability to make sense of the piles of data he enjoys reviewing. I don't see any reason to bet on Kwesi's ability to fix our offensive playcalling.

And what will KOC and/or KAM or an offensive consultant do with the material at hand? A lot of us fans suggest he should run more or run more effectively. KOC may not agree with our diagnosis. As I pointed out, even without playoff success his 2022 season is likely to be graded a huge success overall. If his philosophy truly is to turn JJ into a triple-crown WR, that could be either KOC's own natural tendency or a directive from above to convince Jefferson himself that this franchise is the one that will give him the stat line that will make him an All-Pro every season.

But if KOC does agree with all us amateurs about running more effectively, how does he do that? Will Dalvin Cook, who has looked less consistently explosive this season and will be a year and +250 carries older in 2023, return to the player who used to lead the league in yards after contact? Will our current OL learn to block better? Are we drafting or signing a free agent All-Pro Center?

I also don't share your faith that Cousins will improve with a 2nd season in this system. For one thing, you said we might have a new OC or Consultant changing things around, so will that be the same for him? In the years he has been here, he never played differently even the few years when there was some OC continuity.

OTOH, Cousins might "regress" to the guy he has been through his career: a QB with great stats which look impressive on the resume he uses to repeatedly get great contracts. Yes, O'Connell convinced him that he would not be scolded or benched after every interception and Cousins loosened up. But if that gambit doesn't lead him to a SB championship - the ultimate resume feature in the NFL - will Cousins stay on board, or just look back on 2022 as the season in which he threw the most INTs in his career, and worry that it hurts his chance for another big contract?

FSUVike, you and I agree often here and I always learn from your posts. But you seem to be seeing this season as something the Vikings will build on and have even better play from Cousins in the next few years. I'm afraid I see a season that was built on incredible luck, a defense using a handful of big plays to overcome tremendous flaws, and our QB playing against his own nature. I doubt if any of these can continue and certainly not all three. But it has been a fun season.

OK. I think I understand the psychology and ego factors that drive whether football teams decide to make wholesale changes, and that's far bigger than the analytics toolset KAM employs. But we've said enough.

That would be nice.