A Case for Kellen Mond

With speculation on Cousins’ future, my challenge has always been: if not Cousins, who? Any argument to trade Cousins (2022, 2023 or later) must have an answer to this question. It cannot be left to chance or “whoever we can get” because QB is the most unique position in all of sports. A bad QB will always be exposed. And since there are more teams than good NFL teams, there are never enough to go around. I’ve said several time, the best time to move on from a QB on the roster is when you have a better one on the roster. Most of the discussion on a Cousins replacement has been around 2022 rookies or a 2023 TBD. I also want to make a case for Kellen Mond.

The case against Mond:
This is based a lot on a comment made by Zimmer after the week 17 murder in Green Bay. I think the phrasing is important:

Courtney Cronin: Do you think you want to get a look at Mond next week?
Zimmer: Not particularly
Reporter 2 (didn’t identify): Why don’t you want to get a look at him?
Zimmer: I see him every day

Zimmer's Reply

This was widely interpreted as Zimmer saying “I have seen that Mond stinks”. Even if this is the case and Zimmer was saying Mond stinks, I have to take that opinion with a massive grain of salt (that salt being Zimmer was fired for not getting the most out of his players).

However, I have a slightly different take on Zimmer’s response; I don’t think he was being dismissive of Mond, I think he was being dismissive of the media asking him a question about practice in a “I don’t use live games for practice, I use practice for practice” way. Additionally, Zimmer would have had every incentive to defend his QB preparation; his guy, Mannion, had just finished a game looking like sh*t as the Packers opened up a 30-3 lead in a game that put the nail in Zimmer’s coaching coffin. So Cronin’s original question can lead to the insinuation: Can we see Mond? Why didn’t you play Mond instead of this dumpster fire? Did you appropriately prepare Mond? Have you even tried to adapt your offense to Mond’s strengths? Do you even know what you’re doing with the offense at all? All fair questions that can be shut down with a “Mond sux” type answer.

So I will also include the NFL.com weaknesses for Mond on his draft profile:

Mond Draft Profile
• Deep throws are often flat and overthrown.
• Highly inconsistent in working with anticipation.
• Doesn't consistently make defenses pay for coverage mistakes.
• Shies away from big-play opportunities to take shorter throws.
• Will miss late safety movement indicating incoming blitz.
• Defaults to aiming rather than throwing at times.
• Just average attacking high-low route concepts.
• Inaccuracy and indecisiveness reared ugly heads against LSU.
• Completed just 35 percent of intermediate throws outside the numbers (and 26 percent of deep throws outside numbers) in 2020.


So, what did Mond show?
Admittedly, there’s not a lot there. But I want to start with the question, what do you want to see? If there are limited things to look at I have to be more general in terms what I look for. So the things I’m looking for are:

1) Did he address any of his concerns form the NFL scouting report?
2) Did he look like he was generally adapting to the NFL speed / reads / windows?

To look at these, I looked back at the only things we had: The Kansas City Chiefs pre-season game & 3 snaps against the Packers.

Packers Play 1:
A 6 yard drop off to the RB. Could I look at this and say it is evidence of the listed weakness “Shies away from big-play opportunities to take shorter throws”? Maybe, but for a first live play, in single digit temps and a 37-10 deficit, I’ll take a positive play to start a drive.


Packers Play 2:
When you look at this 2nd play, the important thing is to remember: what you are looking at is not a sack. Mond had just executed play action to the RB and was turning to look downfield and saw this situation



Was this a case of “Will miss late safety movement indicating incoming blitz”? No it was not; because that’s not a blitzer, that’s a completely unblocked pass rusher that Conklin completely turned lose into Mond’s face.

Maybe it was just survival instincts, but I’m actually going to give Mond bonus points for getting a completion on this play. The completion was for -1 yards, but in a 37-10 game, what do you take if your choices are:
A: Sack
B: Incompletion
C: Give an RB a chance to maybe make a guy miss.


Packers play 3:
Look at this play for yourself Here:





And a still here:


This was bad. But, I’m looking for weaknesses. I think the throw was so bad, that it was a bad read, not a bad throw. I will judge “the defense fooled me” differently than “I put the ball in the wrong place”. If Mond was thinking Westbrook would run a curl route to the line to gain, or for the LB to follow Westbrook and hit Osborn, then the throw looks different. And missed reads weren’t on his list of weaknesses (this wasn’t a Hi-Low situation). Was it a case of “Highly inconsistent in working with anticipation”? not really, he missed a read, not an anticipation window. It wasn’t indecisive (if anything he ripped it out to the wrong spot very confidently). This looks to me like Mond and the WRs weren’t on the same page with each other and the WRs were right. This sort of thing should be handled in practice (Zimmer, how have you been preparing Mond?)


Chiefs Play 1:
This is a negative play, an interception by Mond. Again, I’m looking to see if his negative tendencies were there: Did he check down? Miss a throwing window? Miss a route concept? Airmail a ball high?  In this still, the ball is in the air (but not picked up on the resolution of the sideline view).



The throw was behind the WR. The WR couldn’t get around to get his hands on the ball. But if you’re looking for Mond’s flaws: the window was there, the ball split the defenders, he handled pressure, he didn’t check down to the open guy at the 30. He just missed a throw. Maybe this was “flat”, but for that throw, it has to come out with some heat.



Chiefs Play 2:
Deep out to KJ Osborn. This play was also where I first thought “ok, we might have something in Osborn”. But look at this from Mond:



“Deep throws are often flat and overthrown”? No way, this was perfect touch over one defender in front of another; if this is flat the underneath defender is in a perfect spot to tip it or pick it off. 


Chiefs Play 3:
This one has to go in because if you look at the box score, it looks terrible for Mond. 1 int, 2 fumbles. The 1st fumble was a pitch to the RB on a stretch play that hit the RB in the numbers and was then dropped; but since the RB never had control, it was credited to Mond. This was the 2nd.



Really, what I want you to look at is the down and distance (knowing the receivers have to go deep), then eyeball how far downfield the receiver have made it before the RDE has completely beaten the LT’s…. I guess we can call it a “block”. To say nothing of the DT that is already running past the IOL.



Chiefs Play 4:
19 Yards to Brandon Dillon.



Also an example of Mond refuting several of his negatives. In this case he had to step up to avoid pressure and ripped the ball into a window for a big gain. This is especially good seeing the easy dump off in the left flat that Mond had but didn’t take.



Regarding Accuracy:
This is the biggest question for Mond; it was never great in college. There is a missed throw in that example that led to an interception. The question is how much do you know accuracy is going to take a hit if the Vikings move on from Cousins? Cousins is very accurate, so almost anyone will be a downgrade there. For this, I want to offer a comparison to Matthew Stafford (because of his role in Kevin O’Connell’s offense):

Mond’s completion % his last year in College: 63.3%
Stafford completion % his last year in College: 61.5%

Stafford’s NFL completion % in DET: 62.6%
Stafford’s completion % with the Rams: 67.2%

If the Vikings new offense can do for Mond what it did for Stafford, Mond might be accurate enough.


Conclusion:
There wasn’t a lot for fans to see of Mond, but nothing I saw diminished my opinion of him. I still seem him as a guy who was a 4 year starter in the SEC with all the physical tools needed. In fact, in the few examples we have, I see evidence of him offering some counter examples to some of his negative tendencies on the scouting report.  If the Vikings were trade Cousins tomorrow, I would not draft a 2022 QB, I would roll with Mond and a veteran mentor as a clear backup.