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The Minnesota Vikings had a less-than-stellar season, but it's not all the fault of quarterback Kirk Cousins, and head coach Mike Zimmer is the first to say as much.
Mike Zimmer on Kirk Cousins: “I think he had a good year… everybody is going to be on him because of the contract, and we didn’t win enough games — that’s on me, too. But everywhere I’ve been free agents played better in second year. I think he’s gonna be great.”
— Andrew Krammer (@Andrew_Krammer) February 28, 2019
According to ESPN, Cousins had a record-breaking season despite the disappointment. He set an NFL high for completion percentage (70.13) among quarterbacks who have thrown for more than 4,000 yards and 30 touchdowns and fewer than 10 interceptions in a season.
But even though Cousins was able to put up these impressive numbers, the team as a whole didn't do quite well. Despite the had Super Bowl expectations, they fell short. In fact, they stumbled to an 8-7-1 finish while missing the playoffs.
Yikes.
But in addition to Zimmer taking up for his prized player, Vikings general manager Rick Spielman also said that while Cousins was going to get a lot of pushback because he was the quarterback, the “blame” — and the credit — needed to be spread around.
“Kirk Cousins has a position, and the contract is going to get a lot of blame, but the blame has to be spread throughout. I think Kirk, if you look at it from a stats standpoint, he threw for over 4,000 yards and had 30 touchdowns. … We had two 1,000-yard receivers (Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs). We had Pro Bowlers. All that doesn't mean anything. All that comes down to is how we win and lose football games. If he throws for 1 yard and we get into the playoffs, that's all that matters. We had to go back and peel all the different layers off.”
