Team positional breakdown - QB Edition

In the event Cousins takes a better offer in FA, I think Minshew and Brissett are the top names on the market to sign here. Gardner's numbers in Indy haven't been great, but he's a decent game manager who can utilize the weapons he's got around him, plus has some mobility. Brissett was chosen by Cleveland (remember, Kwesi's prior organizaton) to start when Watson was suspended and played decently well. In those two seasons, both had a QBR of 59 or higher. There was also talk of the Vikings reaching out to Washington to get Brissett but the price was too high - and when he did get into games for Washington this year he threw for 224 yards and 3 TDs on just 23 attempts. He's got the arm to hit Jefferson and Addison deep.

I'm out on Lock. He just doesn't have the accuracy, the dude is like Josh Freeman, he can throw 100 MPH but can't hit the plate. Tannehill flopped in the passing game but was playing behind the worst OL in football and would probably be passable with our OL. Tyrod actually played alright and ran the ball like 38 times in the span of 5 games. Wilson's arm just isn't the same and his speed has declined more than QBs like Tyrod. He did have 29 total TDs but similar to the Vikings, their RBs had a total of 5 TDs compared to 28 passing TDs so it was misleading.

Letting Kirk go and inking a bridge QB does put them in a situation where they may feel forced to go QB in the 1st round even if the right guy isn't there. That is the luxury of having Kirk under contract, but the ultimate goal should be to get their franchise QB on a rookie deal and saving that Kirko money for the rest of the team. It's a big risk, but so is sinking more money into a losing formula.

If Kirk stays something like this...

1.Kirk
2.Rookie
3.Hall
4. Undrafted sight seeing visitor lol

If Kirk walks...
1.Minshew
2.Rookie
3.Mullens and Hall fighting for the 3rd QB the other gone.

I would keep Mullens only if I let Kirk go. As insurance so the rook not  injury away and in case the other bridge struggles.Do something like this please. I honestly like the second option better

Unfortunately we have to put some desperation guys on the list. Just in case. Maybe we want Kirk back and he walks then what? Have all these names around and then start from the top trying to get who you want.

We can only lead them to water Reign we can't make them drink. We can only give direction then it's up to them to pick the right guy and actually play to strengths. That's past our pay scale. We leading them in the right direction but they have to pilot the player. Which is a whole another topic on if they can or not.

I don't think he'd take that deal either, and that's a good thing. I don't think Kwesi is the right man to build a champion, but not even he's dumb enough to overpay for Kirk again. Right?

I don't think he "sucks" either, but in the binary world of do you want to win a championship or not, he sucks xD. And that's where I'm at. It's pretty clear this guy is never going to win a championship, unless he plays for the vet minimum and you manage to surround him with the '85 Bears defense. Which isn't going to happen, so every year wasted on this guy, is one year further from a championship. I don't care who he is as a human being or father off the field, that's not what I signed up for as a fan of this team. I can root for him to be an amazing human being as a Falcon or whatever. As far as this stupid team goes, I want champions. In the long list of priorities, champion first, and worlds greatest family guy ... 187th, just ahead of above average plumber ... except on taco Tuesday.

Don't sign Kirk or Mullens,
Trade up to draft a QB.
Thrown him in right away and let him work the magic. What could go wrong? Teams do it all the time, and it's so successful. We can use all the savings on the QB to get a bunch of other players in the next few years while we destroy the QB we drafted.

Rather than create a new thread I will put this here.

So far in KOC's career, he has coached 3 very different types of QBs in significant snaps. Cousins, the conservative, mostly accurate QB who does exactly what the coach asks, Dobbs, the mobile QB who has the ability to create with his legs and Mullens, the gunslinger.

Mullens threw for the most yards on average in his starts.

Dobbs scored the most points in a game for the Vikings.

Cousins offense had the most yards gained in a game.

Mullens turned the ball over at a much higher rate than the other three.

Dobbs scored the fewest points in a game.

Cousins had the fewest yards in a game (of those three) against the Bears.


Here is how those QBs have faired with KOC versus their other head coaches when starting games(also included in Dobbs numbers is the game against Atlanta):

Green indicates where that QB did better, red is where they did worse.  

Looking at this chart, there is a lot more red than green which is a bad look for our head coach.  Cousins has a small uptick in completion percentage, yards and TDs, but that is countered by his much larger hit to ints, passer rating and YPA. However, if you took out Kirks years with the QB whisperer Mike Zimmer, KOC is getting more out of Kirk than McVay and other did in Washington. Dobbs was less productive in nearly every category except rushing, which is a bit shocking considering most fans felt KOC wasn't taking advantage of his running ability. Still, this is a huge indictment on KOC with the vast majority of Dobb's starts prior to joining the Vikings coming from his time in AZ, where he played on a terrible team.  

Then we have Nick Mullens.   Unlike Dobbs, Mullens played in a very QB friendly system with tons of talent around him prior to joining the Vikings.  He should have been the one who looked worse with KOC, but in nearly every category he was much, much better with KOC as his HC.  He took more sacks, threw more picks, but Shanahan's offense is built to negate interceptions and keep the QB upright and KOC's does the opposite.  

So should we be looking for a QB like Mullens going forward if that is the type of QB KOC actually made look better than Kyle Shanahan could?  Are we seeing why McVay traded for Stafford when he already had Kirk Cousins Jr on the team?  Stafford is Nick Mullens if Nick Mullens had talent, and look at what he did for that LA team, putting them over the top in his first season and turning LA's season around this year after injuries derailed his second season there.  Unfortunately, Stafford isn't available, so who could we get that plays like Stafford and Mullens, but is better than our current backup? 

The answer to that unfortunately, is Jameis Winston.  Like Stafford, Winston is also Nick Mullens with talent, and I strongly believe that Winston would have this offense top 5 in scoring, something Cousins has never done. He actually had the Bucs 3rd in scoring his final season in TB, and the Vikings have more talent than they did in 2019.  His interceptions would still be a problem, KOC's offense will always lead to more turnovers from its QBs, but that is okay because when they got too bad we would have our QBOTF ready to take over to get some valuable real game experience to help him develop into a great QB in 2025 when the team is finally ready to compete for a SB.  

It would suck to have that scumbag at QB, but at least the team would be competitive most Sundays and at least we wouldn't have to root for him for long.  This would keep JJ happy (he averaged 139 yards per game with Mullens, 114 yards with Cousins), would give the Vikings a lot more cap space to make the team around Winston and a rookie QB better, and would actually be a move to build towards the future instead of clinging to the status quo.