But they don’t, because they haven’t been on good teams most of their careers.Īs I wrote in my Great QB Fallacy piece last year, Kirk Cousins and Tom Brady have basically the same passer rating since 2015 when Cousins became a starter. If it was, a QB like Deshaun Watson would’ve had a lot more wins.
It’s not a QB stat and it never has been. Win-loss record is the ultimate team stat in football. And Cousins has the 3rd highest adjusted completion percentage on deep balls, and the highest on intermediate ones. Those are the money passes QBs are paid to make. That is remarkably consistent, top level performance.Ĭousins is also the 4th highest PFF graded QB on deep (20+ yard) passes, and 1st on intermediate (10-19 yard) passes, pressured or not. And, he has not ranked worse than 2nd after every week this season since week two. If you take pass protection out of the equation, and just look at pass attempts in a clean pocket, Kirk Cousins is the highest rated quarterback and passer in the league with an elite 93.2 passer grade, and a 94.6 overall grade. And Tom Brady just 1 out of every five attempts. Matthew Stafford 1 of every 4.5 attempts. Aaron Rodgers faces pressure on 1 of 4 pass attempts. Cousins faces pressure on basically 1 of every 3 pass attempts this season- which is an improvement on prior seasons. Kirk Cousins has achieved basically top 5 or better stats across the board this season despite having considerably worse pass protection than any leading MVP contender. Kirk Cousins!- Aaron Schatz November 22, 2021ĭid I Mention the Vikings Have the Lowest PFF Team Pass Protection Grade? Speaking of MVP candidates, Kirk Cousins is now second in the NFL in passing DYAR. This gives the value of the quarterback’s performance compared to replacement level, adjusted for situation and opponent and then translated into yardage. Quarterbacks are ranked according to DYAR, or Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement. Of course Cousins would have more had a field goal or two been made at the end of them, but there you go.ĭYAR: Yet another QB measure, DYAR compiled by Football Outsiders, has Kirk Cousins as its second highest ranked quarterback. But in terms of game-winning drives and 4th quarter comebacks, Cousins is tied for 6th in 4th quarter comebacks with Tom Brady and a few others with 2, and is tied for 4th in game-winning drives with 3 - one more than Brady. This ranks behind such notables as Jameis Winston and Jimmy Garappolo, and just ahead of Tua Tagovailoa, who aren’t on anybody’s list of top ten QBs, so how valid a measure of QB performance QBR is remains a bit cloudy. QBR, GWDs, & 4QC: Cousins also ranks 8th in ESPN’s QBR rating, which attempts to weigh QB performance according to circumstances like down and distance, game situation, and a variety of as yet unknown (proprietary) other weightings, at 59.1. These are both pretty broad measures of unweighted passing success. Cousins also has the 2nd lowest sack rate in the league, just behind Tom Brady, despite having a much worse pass blocking line in front of him, so he’s done reasonably well in avoiding pressure - or at least not taking sacks when there is pressure - compared to most other QBs.ĪNY/A & Passer Rating: Cousins also ranks 4th in Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt, or ANY/A, at 7.72 - 0.02 behind Tom Brady, and is 3rd in passer rating at 106.3, two tenths higher than Brady.
Tom Brady stands behind the 3rd best graded pass blocking team in the league.Ĭousins also has the 9th quickest time to throw in the league at 2.55 seconds, which is 6 hundreds slower than the third ranked, at 2.49 seconds- hardly measurable - so its not like he’s making life harder for his pass protectors either.
And this despite being on the team with the lowest PFF pass blocking grade in the NFL at this point. PFF Grades: Cousins ranks 3rd overall in PFF passing grade, and 2nd in overall QB grade- within less than a point on both measures on a 100 point scale compared to Tom Brady, who is in the MVP conversation. Here are some overall QB stats that suggest he should at least be in the running for MVP: partly because of the 5-5 team record, but also because Kirk just doesn’t get the respect he deserves at this point in his career, playing as well as he has.īe that as it may, let’s take a deeper dive into some of Kirk Cousins stats, and why he deserves to be in the MVP conversation at this point in the season. So yes, he should be in the MVP conversation at this point, although I’m not holding my breath for any consensus among pundits, sportswriters and fans to emerge. It’s difficult to look at the quarterback of a 5-5 team and say he belongs near the top of the MVP conversation, but on the other hand, Cousins has played as well or better than any quarterback in the league this year, and with worse pass protection than pretty much any other QB MVP contender.
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