Category: 2022 Week 4 @ New Orleans

Kirk Cousins in Week 4: How cowardly were his checkdowns?

The decision-making wasn’t great, but Sunday’s game wasn’t heavy on checkdowns

There are a lot of myths surrounding Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins. One that continues to perpetuate is that Cousins is the king of the checkdown.

In this new series for The Vikings Wire, we will be focusing on proving or disproving that myth.

What will we be quantifying as a checkdown? It won’t just be a short route or a screen. It will be a receiver that leaks out short that is an emergency option outside of the standard progressions.

All quarterbacks take these and Cousins is no different. Why are we looking at going through with this series? Cousins has a tendency to want everything to be perfect which can result in throwing into the flat instead of trusting his weapons down the field or waiting a split-second longer for someone to come open downfield. What this series will do is quantify each checkdown based on situation, pressure and confidence.

The scale that we will be using is from 1-10 with one being the most cowardly and 10 being the perfect decision. Some of this will be a little bit subjective but most of these will be closer to white or black than being a shade of gray.

Throughout the season, we will be breaking each one down and talking about why Cousins made the decision and what he could have or should have done differently.

Week 1: 4/33 (12.12%) Score: 26/40 (6.5)
Week 2: 12/46 (26.09%) Score: 73/120
Week 3: 2/41 (4.88%) Score: 14/20
Checkdowns (Season): 18/120 (15.00%)
Overall Grade: 113/180

Lewis Cine has successful surgery on compound fracture

Surgery was successful for the rookie safety

The Minnesota Vikings had great injury luck until this past weekend in London.

After only having four games missed due to injury, rookie first-round pick Lewis Cine suffered a compound fracture to his left leg. It was such a gruesome injury that the NFL Network broadcast didn’t show a replay of the injury.

After about five minutes on the ground, Cine was carted off and shortly brought to a local hospital. He had a procedure to set himself up for surgery on Tuesday, which was successful per the Vikings.

The important and unfortunate word in this statement is compound. That means the fracture punctured the skin and creates a massive risk for infection. Players like Alex Smith and Kevin Ware (Louisville college basketball) have had compound fractures. Both ended up returning to their prospective sports.

Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott had a similar-looking injury in October of 2020. He returned to practice after about six months. That right now is the ideal scenario for Cine.

For now, Cine will stay in England until he is healed enough to travel back to Minnesota. One of the Vikings medical staffers will stay with Cine during his time overseas.

Our best wishes to Cine and hope he has a full and speedy recovery

Watch Kevin O’Connell utilize space vs Saints

The Vikings offense uses space really well

The Minnesota Vikings offense in their 28-25 victory over the New Orleans Saints in London and the first drive looked very similar to the college football Air Raid over what the offense has looked like the first few weeks.

Quarterback Kirk Cousins was making short, concise throws that gave his receivers the ball with an opportunity to do something with it after the catch.

The prime example of that came on the first play of the game.

The Vikings are in a 2×2 set after Adam Thielen motions to the top of the formation. With Justin Jefferson lining up at the bottom, Marshon Lattimore is lined up about eight yards off of Jefferson signaling zone coverage.

This play is one of two things: great design by O’Connell or a smart check from Cousins. Either way, the bubble screen is effective and Jefferson takes it for a nice 10-yard gain.

The Vikings taking advantage of both of these elements will be key to helping unlock the success of this offense.

Justin Jefferson declares himself “The Answer” on Instagram

Jefferson compares himself to Allen Iverson, declares himself “The Answer”

The Minnesota Vikings got the win over the New Orleans Saints in London by a score of 28-25, but that wasn’t the big story on the day. That belonged to star wide receiver Justin Jefferson.

After a couple of games that left a little bit to be desired, Jefferson had a fantastic game against the Saints. Their star cornerback Marshon Lattimore followed Jefferson for most of the day and it didn’t matter all that much.

When covering Jefferson, Lattimore allowed seven catches on 10 targets for 93 yards. That included gaining massive separation on Lattimore.

Throughout the game, Jefferson made his presence felt by winning on all three levels, including stacking Lattimore late in the game on a deep route.

On Monday, Jefferson took to social media to snipe at Lattimore and did it with the perfect picture: the Allen Iverson stepover on Tyrann Lue from the 2000 NBA Finals.

All-time post from Jefferson who truly was the answer for the Vikings on Sunday.

O’Connell on Cousins: “I think he’s going to be more consistent”

The Vikings head coach is bullish on the offense

The Minnesota Vikings come out of London’s 28-25 win over the Saints with just as many questions as answers.

One of those questions surrounds Vikings starting quarterback Kirk Cousins and how he has been operating this offense.

Throughout the entirety of his career, Cousins has played in multiple versions of the wide zone offense. From Kyle Shanahan to Sean McVay and Gary Kubiak, Cousins has had some really good coaches calling plays for him. With that also comes different verbiage and style within the same system. Cousins is dealing with some of that right now adjusting to head coach Kevin O’Connell.

At his Monday press conference, O’Connell expressed confidence in Cousins’ ability to be more consistent.

Cousins has shown some real struggles having thrown just six touchdown passes to just four interceptions but they have also faced some tough defenses to start the season. They get the Chicago Bears this Sunday, who ranked 12th in points allowed and 21st in yards allowed. Hopefully, Cousins and O’Connell can use the game to truly get in-sync as things move forward.

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Vikings PFF Grades: Standouts from Week 4

The PFF grades are in and come across favorably for the Vikings

A 28-25 win in London over the New Orleans Saints has fans of the Minnesota Vikings feeling both positively and negatively about the team.

While the 3-1 record is objectively good, it hasn’t been the cleanest path to get there. They won their last two games with sub-par performances or in other words: clunkers.

Justin Jefferson was the key to the Vikings win getting 10 receptions for 147 yards and a rushing touchdown.

As the Vikings move forward to play the Chicago Bears on Sunday, PFF released their grades from Sunday’s game and there were some fascinating grades.

Justin Jefferson took Marshon Lattimore to school

The star cornerback was no match for Justin Jefferson

The Vikings rode the coat tails of star wide receiver Justin Jefferson en route to a 28-25 victory in London over the New Orleans Saints.

After a couple of tough outings, the offense made it a priority to get Jefferson involved early and often. They lived up to their word with two catches on the first drive and 13 targets on 39 passes (33.3% target share).

Not only did Jefferson have an excellent game of production on Sunday but he did so against the Saints’ top cornerback Marshon Lattimore.

While Jefferson caught 10 passes on 13 targets for 147 yards, he did most of his damage on Lattimore.

Seven catches for 93 yards is no small feat for Jefferson. Lattimore not allowing more than three receptions in the Saints’ previous 20 games is extremely impressive but Jefferson is no average receiver.

The struggles he had against Darius Slay and the bracket coverage he received against the Detroit Lions certainly has paid off. Just look at the separation created.

Jefferson is back in full force and the NFL better prepare for his wrath.

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Vikings CB Kris Boyd claps back at ungrateful fans

Boyd had some choice words for ungrateful fans

The Minnesota Vikings had another hard-fought win that they squeaked to in the end beating the New Orleans Saints 28-25.

The game itself had the Vikings starting out and finishing hot but struggling in the middle. They were 2-5 in the red zone bringing their total down below 50% for the season.

Kirk Cousins also threw another brutal interception to Tyrann Mathieu that turned into a Saints touchdown to Chris Olave.

Despite the issues that the Vikings have had, the record doesn’t reflect their issues. Sitting at 3-1 on the season, they are atop the NFC North division holding the tiebreaker over the Green Bay Packers due to beating them in week one.

Despite their successful record, there is some discontent among the fanbase. Vikings fourth-year cornerback Kris Boyd saw that online and had a message for who he called “ungrateful fans.”

It’s ok to be critical of your team but it appears that some were going too far. Boyd’s sentiment is right. This team is 3-1 and still figuring things out.

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Vikings Week 4 snap counts: Running back a time share

The snap counts pointed out a couple of trends

The Minnesota Vikings snap counts from their 28-25 victory over the New Orleans Saints mostly held true.

There were a couple slight surprises considering the Vikings had some injuries but otherwise remained consistent.

Let’s take a look at the Vikings snap counts from week 4.

Should the Vikings be concerned about Kevin O’Connell’s clock management?

Does head coach Kevin O’Connell have an issue with clock management?

The Minnesota Vikings got the win in London over the New Orleans Saints by a score of 28-25 but that wasn’t without controversy.

The biggest point of controversy came at the end of the second quarter.

The Vikings had just kicked a field goal and kicked the ball off to the Saints. On the first play, Dalvin Tomlinson strip-sacked Andy Dalton and the ball was recovered by Harrison Phillips.

The play gave the Vikings the ball at the Saints 20 yard line with three time-outs and 56 seconds left on the clock. What happened next was flabbergasting at best.

The first play was a throw to Justin Jefferson into the flat off jet-action to let him create after the catch. A safe, yet potentially explosive play. It got no gain due to a nice play by second-year cornerback Paulson Adebo.

They snapped the next play with 22 seconds left. How can you let that much time come off the clock with only 20 yards to go and a loaded offense? The answer could be quite a few things but the thought process was conservative and disappointing.

The second play was a check down into the flat that fell incomplete and after a false start by Brian O’Neill, Cousins completed a pass to Irv Smith Jr. for seven yards leading to a field goal with just three seconds left.

There are two likely scenarios as to why O’Connell wasn’t more aggressive in this spot: he is conservative like the guy he replaced in Mike Zimmer or O’Connell didn’t trust Cousins after he threw an interception at the end of the first quarter. The latter is the likely scenario.

After Cousins throws an interception where he is aggressive, he tends to go into a really conservative state. Sunday’s game was no different. He turned it up once the Saints took the lead but that gap between the interception and the final two drives left a lot to be desired, including a sure touchdown to Justin Jefferson on a 3rd and goal where he took a one-yard check down to Adam Thielen instead.

Is this a cause for concern yet?  I wouldn’t go that far. It’s tough for a new coach to get everything right immediately. This is something that deserves monitoring moving forward, as it can be come a big issue down the line.

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