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Is Cousins Officially Clutch? (1 Viewer)

Is Kirk Cousins a Clutch QB?

  • Yes he is.

    Votes: 16 19.0%
  • No he isn’t.

    Votes: 50 59.5%
  • Not yet, but he’s becoming more clutch and I’m willing to consider it

    Votes: 16 19.0%
  • I had my opinion on Cousins cemented 4 years ago and no amount of new data can change my mind.

    Votes: 2 2.4%

  • Total voters
    84
why waste time on Cousins? seriously. he's a loser in big games, he's now 12-21 in primetime games. yeah he had decent stats. but the coaching staff sux yet again.
 
This thread didn't age well.
I posted a question. Wondered if his late game heroics this year changed anyone’s mind. You saying he didn’t play a bit more clutch this year? Was this not a valid topic?

He failed in that last play tonight. It was a bad decision no doubt.
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
He was a dark horse pick to win MVP by many talking heads. There is absolutely a fair narrative that he is overrated as a QB.
 
This thread didn't age well.
I posted a question. Wondered if his late game heroics this year changed anyone’s mind. You saying he didn’t play a bit more clutch this year? Was this not a valid topic?

He failed in that last play tonight. It was a bad decision no doubt.
I thought he had a a great post game quote where he basically said, “I looked for JJ and couldn’t go there. I felt I was going to get sacked and definitely didn’t want that to happen, so I saw TJ and I at least wanted to get the ball into play before I was sacked.“ (1 million % paraphrased)

logical enough, honestly. Easy for us arm chair QBs to say “you shouldn’t throw there” but it was his last ditch effort and hope that TJ could miraculously push for a first down like he had before in the game.
I'm not a cousins fan at all really. Just thought it put a dose of reality on that last play.
 
At least Tyler Huntley knew enough to throw the ball to the right spot on the last play of the game. He gave his team a chance. Cousins threw it 5-7 yards short of the first down. (Different situations, yadda yadda, I get it)

Was it a bad play call? A lucky defensive play by the Giants, who had let TJ run wild in the middle of the field all day? Possibly.

But ultimately Cousins — a veteran QB and no spring chicken — threw a pass that most defensive coordinators would take their chances with relative to the option set available.
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
He was a dark horse pick to win MVP by many talking heads. There is absolutely a fair narrative that he is overrated as a QB.
Wait, what? I don't recall anyone saying he was an MVP candidate. He might have been in the top 10 of the Vegas favorites simply because he was the QB on a team that won 12 games, but I can't believe anyone with any credibility thought Cousins was a legit or even dark horse candidate.
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
He was a dark horse pick to win MVP by many talking heads. There is absolutely a fair narrative that he is overrated as a QB.
Wait, what? I don't recall anyone saying he was an MVP candidate. He might have been in the top 10 of the Vegas favorites simply because he was the QB on a team that won 12 games, but I can't believe anyone with any credibility thought Cousins was a legit or even dark horse candidate.
Michael Irvin is a big fan.
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
He was a dark horse pick to win MVP by many talking heads. There is absolutely a fair narrative that he is overrated as a QB.
Wait, what? I don't recall anyone saying he was an MVP candidate. He might have been in the top 10 of the Vegas favorites simply because he was the QB on a team that won 12 games, but I can't believe anyone with any credibility thought Cousins was a legit or even dark horse candidate.
Michael Irvin is a big fan.
Thankfully those two statements don’t conflict.
 
At least Tyler Huntley knew enough to throw the ball to the right spot on the last play of the game. He gave his team a chance. Cousins threw it 5-7 yards short of the first down. (Different situations, yadda yadda, I get it)

Was it a bad play call? A lucky defensive play by the Giants, who had let TJ run wild in the middle of the field all day? Possibly.

But ultimately Cousins — a veteran QB and no spring chicken — threw a pass that most defensive coordinators would take their chances with relative to the option set available.

I was fine with the play. Hockenson is outstanding and the defender made a world class tackle.

The safer play for deflecting blame was for sure trying to fit it in downfield.
 
Average NFL QB. Not great, not horrible.
Historically average, I'd buy.

In today's NFL, where there just aren't that many good QB's, he's above average.

He was the #4 blitzed, #3 sacked and #1 knocked down QB this season.

For reference, Justin Herbert, who also has a bad line had about the same in stats but he's one of the league's "promising young QBs".

 
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Daniel Jones was only pressured on 16% of his drop backs - Cousins was 49%. Yet Kirk still managed to go 31-39.

He's not perfect, but he's not the reason they lost yesterday - including that final play.
Cousins played a great game yesterday but he is a sitting duck in the pocket.
Jones used his legs to avoid pressure
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
He was a dark horse pick to win MVP by many talking heads. There is absolutely a fair narrative that he is overrated as a QB.
Probably the most underrated QB in football.

He consistently produces and people want to slag him because he isn’t Mahomes or Allen.

Heck, Josh Allen almost blew a gimme yesterday.
 
why waste time on Cousins? seriously. he's a loser in big games, he's now 12-21 in primetime games. yeah he had decent stats. but the coaching staff sux yet again.
This is one of the dumbest stats people love to throw out there when talking about cousins. How many of those primetime games was his TEAM favored? Did he lose those games 10 to 7? Did he play poorly in those games or was he simply on the losing end?
 
I hate defending Cousins, but it bears repeating that the MIN offense was humming all year before they lost their starting center to a broken fibula week 17.

It’s pretty clearly been downhill from there.

Also not helpful is Cook’s sometimes middling performances, but he looked ok last night. Again, the OL didn’t do anyone any favors.

As for the topic title, I’m not sure I believe in “clutch” as a general trait. It’s a subject that used to come up in FBB circles all the time. Failure is part of the game. No QB completes all of their passes. There are a lot of factors that go into winning football.

“clutch” seems like an imaginary thing to me. Sure, there are players that have come up big in big moments. Steph Curry is arguably one of the most “clutch” players in the game, playing some of his best games on the biggest stage.

He also missed a game-winning 3-pointer against the Cavs that lost them a championship.

I don’t see a lot of “Steph Curry isn’t clutch” topics. Just sayin.
 
I hate defending Cousins, but it bears repeating that the MIN offense was humming all year before they lost their starting center to a broken fibula week 17.

It’s pretty clearly been downhill from there.

Also not helpful is Cook’s sometimes middling performances, but he looked ok last night. Again, the OL didn’t do anyone any favors.

As for the topic title, I’m not sure I believe in “clutch” as a general trait. It’s a subject that used to come up in FBB circles all the time. Failure is part of the game. No QB completes all of their passes. There are a lot of factors that go into winning football.

“clutch” seems like an imaginary thing to me. Sure, there are players that have come up big in big moments. Steph Curry is arguably one of the most “clutch” players in the game, playing some of his best games on the biggest stage.

He also missed a game-winning 3-pointer against the Cavs that lost them a championship.

I don’t see a lot of “Steph Curry isn’t clutch” topics. Just sayin.
Strongly disagree. Whether or not Curry is clutch was debated often until he won the title last year.
 
At least Tyler Huntley knew enough to throw the ball to the right spot on the last play of the game. He gave his team a chance. Cousins threw it 5-7 yards short of the first down. (Different situations, yadda yadda, I get it)

Was it a bad play call? A lucky defensive play by the Giants, who had let TJ run wild in the middle of the field all day? Possibly.

But ultimately Cousins — a veteran QB and no spring chicken — threw a pass that most defensive coordinators would take their chances with relative to the option set available.

I was fine with the play. Hockenson is outstanding and the defender made a world class tackle.

The safer play for deflecting blame was for sure trying to fit it in downfield.
The safe play was dumping it off and hoping Hock broke the tackle.

It was either a bad play call, a bad decision, or bad luck (aka great tackle and thus bad luck the defender made an awesome play).

The middle of the field was wide open all day. Didn’t think it was a great play call, also thought Cousins played it safe by not throwing a ball past the marker.

What’s amusing about this debate is that in any other game, people complain when QBs throw short of the marker, or when the route is run short the marker. Yet for some strange, unknown reason this case is different for a few folks. No clue why. My hunch is that folks enjoy being contrarian. I can appreciate that.
 
At that point there is very little wrong with just throwing it up for grabs downfield. If your receiver doesn't catch it you still have a chance of a flag being thrown on the defense. Throwing it short is exactly what the defense wants you to do. And this goes for every QB in that situation, not just Cousins.
 
At that point there is very little wrong with just throwing it up for grabs downfield. If your receiver doesn't catch it you still have a chance of a flag being thrown on the defense. Throwing it short is exactly what the defense wants you to do. And this goes for every QB in that situation, not just Cousins.

Eh, everyone complains any time a guy gets tackled short on 3rd/4th down, but ignores the literally HUNDREDS of times throughout the season that guys get the ball short of the sticks on 3rd/4th down and pick it up.

Dolphins just did it earlier in the day on the exact same situation (4th and 8)


If anything, tackle breaking beast TE Hockenson having to break one tackle is probably better odds than just throwing it up into double coverage. The throw just wasn't quite ideal as Hock had to make a little play on the ball instead of being able to turn upfield quickly.
 
Strongly disagree. Whether or not Curry is clutch was debated often until he won the title last year.
You seem to be missing my point.

IMO “clutch” is a fiction, and largely a byproduct of applying either hindsight or selective observation

If a player makes 6/10 shots, it’s irrelevant if one of those shots wins a game. That player shot 60%

“Clutch” is an assignation by the audience, where significantly more weight is given to that 1 shot - but it’s still just 1 shot.

The same applies to the term “choker”.

Also, to your statement, I don’t recall any “curry isn’t clutch” debates, but that’s not really a rabbit hole we need to take the Kirk Cousins topic down.
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
He was a dark horse pick to win MVP by many talking heads. There is absolutely a fair narrative that he is overrated as a QB.
Probably the most underrated QB in football.

He consistently produces and people want to slag him because he isn’t Mahomes or Allen.

Heck, Josh Allen almost blew a gimme yesterday.

Agreed. Cousins outplayed Allen, Lawrence, and Burrow yesterday.

NFL football is just more than one guy.

Allen/Lawrence were awful and had 7 turnovers between them, didn't even deserve to be in the game except that the Chargers were so shut down and that the talent disparity in the rest of the Fins/Bills was so great they didn't need Allen to play well.

Burrow was the only winning QB of the three that played well but the only difference between the Bengals and Vikings outcomes was a miracle 100 yard fumble return by the defense when the Ravens were going in for the late go ahead touchdown.
 
Remember when Peyton Manning wasn’t clutch and “couldn’t win the big one”?

Until he did.


Not saying they’re in the same convo talent wise but this clutch stuff is total bs imo
 
Strongly disagree. Whether or not Curry is clutch was debated often until he won the title last year.
You seem to be missing my point.

IMO “clutch” is a fiction, and largely a byproduct of applying either hindsight or selective observation

If a player makes 6/10 shots, it’s irrelevant if one of those shots wins a game. That player shot 60%

“Clutch” is an assignation by the audience, where significantly more weight is given to that 1 shot - but it’s still just 1 shot.

The same applies to the term “choker”.

Also, to your statement, I don’t recall any “curry isn’t clutch” debates, but that’s not really a rabbit hole we need to take the Kirk Cousins topic down.
I get your broader point 100%. Go post about it in the NBA thread — you will get flamed by people here who believe deeply that some guys are “clutch” and others can have a “hot hand.”

The Curry point is a rabbit hole indeed. But it also absolutely was a debate for a half decade. People still bring up that Klay is more clutch than Curry.
 
The Curry point is a rabbit hole indeed. But it also absolutely was a debate for a half decade. People still bring up that Klay is more clutch than Curry.
Ah - thank you for the clarification. I learned to not talk basketball online years ago. It seemed like a less reasonable crowd than football. I have no doubt such debates exist - I just don't buy into the whole "clutch" thing as a concept. Curry made 80 straight free throws at one point. When he finally missed one, I'm sure someone called him a choker because it was at an important moment of the game, but he was still 80-1 at that point, and is a career 90.82%FT shooter.

Baseball used to be my online discussion forum of choice, but the game, along with the audience, has seemed to be in decline for a while now.

So hard pass, but I do appreciate that context. :thumbup:
 
Cousins played well, but made a very bad decision on the last throw of the game. He’s not elite, and I’m not sure anyone has argued that he is, but narratives are fun.
He was a dark horse pick to win MVP by many talking heads. There is absolutely a fair narrative that he is overrated as a QB.
Wait, what? I don't recall anyone saying he was an MVP candidate. He might have been in the top 10 of the Vegas favorites simply because he was the QB on a team that won 12 games, but I can't believe anyone with any credibility thought Cousins was a legit or even dark horse candidate.
Cousins shouldn't have been the 1st choice on the Vikings for MVP.

Cousins is still a B- QB. Nothing has changed on that front. He's not gonna get better, this is what he is. He's been relatively consistent his entire career going back to Washington.

Also, and I described it earlier in the thread, but clutch isn't a thing. Never was. Its just lazy shorthand for who has and hasn't won things yet. Football is far too much of team sport for any one player to swing it on their own.
 
I hate defending Cousins, but it bears repeating that the MIN offense was humming all year before they lost their starting center to a broken fibula week 17.
This is incorrect. That was the backup center who was filling in for Bradbury who hurt his back in a car accident. Bradbury was in the lineup yesterday. The point is somewhat correct. The line played better this year but they weren't great.

Yesterday was far from Cousins fault. The defense of bend don't break.....broke yesterday and couldn't off the field. Vikings were lucky to be in it at all with the way the defense played.
 
Is this some kind of joke? The question is, frankly, is an oxymoron. Quite simply, he's system QB who fells apart when everything breaks down or everything goes off schedule. He has never take any chance downfield even with JJ.
 
Remember when Peyton Manning wasn’t clutch and “couldn’t win the big one”?

Until he did.


Not saying they’re in the same convo talent wise but this clutch stuff is total bs imo
Let me just check whether Peyton Manning won one playoff game in eleven seasons.
 
Remember when Peyton Manning wasn’t clutch and “couldn’t win the big one”?

Until he did.


Not saying they’re in the same convo talent wise but this clutch stuff is total bs imo
Let me just check whether Peyton Manning won one playoff game in eleven seasons.
Come on. You get my point.

Even the obviously great players get questioned when they haven’t won a big one yet. Of course people will question Cousins, whether he deserves it or not.
 
The last play was a bad decision, but also a bad route design IMO. If the guy has a route that is short of the marker it should be so he can catch the ball while heading up the field. Not a great decision by Cousins, but he was under pressure so I can't place all the blame on him. I'd have rather seen him just give Jefferson a chance and I'm surprised how little Jefferson did after the first drive.
 
Agreed. Cousins outplayed Allen, Lawrence, and Burrow yesterday.

Agreed.

But it seems like 99% of fans don't see it.
Fans get stuck on a narrative and find ways to make anything stick to it. There are Justin Herbert doubters who are actually trying to blame the Chargers collapse on him. For real. You can't make this stuff up. (and Herbert is already way better than Cousins will ever be)
 
The Vikings won 13 games with one of the worst defenses I’ve ever seen. Excluding the last play, not sure how anyone who has watched all year doesn’t think he’s any good. No, he’s not top 5. Neither are 26 other guys. Very strange how controversial he seems to be.
 
Cousins is good but not great. Miracle they made the playoffs with that defense.
What are the Vikes supposed to do? Get rid of Cousins and tank for three years, or keep making the playoffs?
 
Cousins is good enough to win a Super Bowl with the right team, IMO. He won't with the Vikings defense.
Cousins and the Vikes are where the Raiders WISH they were. Top 15 QB with great offensive weapon, and a crappy defense. Yet the Vikes made the playoffs while…checks notes… the Raiders only slightly underperformed this year. ;)
 
🤷 he’s in the same tier as probably half the starting QBs in the league. Give them a top defense, O line and playmakers and they’ll do well. But they’re not going to carry a team. There might be only two QBs who are currently above that line and a few who can play above it at times.
 

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