Lunchbreak: Cousins, Smith Land on NFL.com's 30 Best Players Over 30 List

Viktor

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Mar 19, 2019
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Bhanpuri wrote of Smith:


One half of the NFL's best safety duo, Smith helped clean up a lot of the Vikings' sloppy coverage miscues last year. While offseason departures Xavier Rhodes and Trae Waynes were too often liabilities, Smith continued to be the consistent, reliable safety net in Mike Zimmer's defense.


The five-time Pro Bowler ranked among the best at his position when he was the nearest defender in coverage, totaling 11 passes defended while limiting opposing passers to a 50.3 rating. With Minnesota's CB group high on potential, but light on experience, Smith will need to conjure up another all-star effort in 2020 for the Vikings to make a legit run.



Analytics site Pro Football Focus graded Smith at 91.4 for his play this past season, which trailed only teammate Anthony Harris (91.6) among all safeties.


Cousins was one of eight quarterbacks listed, along with Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Ryan Tannehill.


Bhanpuri wrote:


Less was certainly more for Cousins last season, as he completed 69 percent of his passes and boasted a career-best 107.4 passer rating (destroying his previous PR by 6 points) while throwing the ball 130 fewer times than he averaged over the previous four seasons. So why after a career year doesn't he rank higher on our list? Because so much of his success depended on Dalvin Cook. Thirty-eight percent of Cousins' total passing yards last season came off play-action, per PFF.


That was third-most behind Tannehill and Jimmy Garoppolo (both at 42 percent) — two guys also bolstered by elite rushing attacks. The Vikings passer (who turns 32 in August) was the only quarterback last season who threw more than 50 percent of his touchdown passes off play-action (14 to 12) even though his play-action attempts accounted for just 32 percent of his total passes. I'm not suggesting Cousins isn't a really good player — obviously that's not the case because he's on this list — but unlike the QBs ahead of him, he's yet to prove he can consistently be the primary reason his team wins.



The quarterback, who started 15 games, completed 307 of 444 passes (69.1 percent) for 3,603 yards with 26 touchdowns and six interceptions in 2019.


Cousins tied four other quarterbacks in the NFL for the most games last season with a passer rating of 100 or greater, reaching the threshold in nine games. He finished with a 107.4 passer rating that ranked fourth among qualifiers in 2019 and is the second-highest by a Vikings QB ever (Daunte Culpepper, 110.9 in 2004).
 
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