Viktor
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- Mar 19, 2019
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The lack of consistently yielding explosive plays certainly weighed on Cousins’ mind after the season, as it was his immediate answer to the second question asked to him when he returned to Minnesota for the voluntary offseason program in April.
When probed about his takeaways from the 2018 season, Cousins explained the need for a higher frequency of big chunks through the air.
“I think when I look back at it, I think the big piece of the game, of my game that I looked at, there was a lack of explosive plays. I don’t think it was – you can look at any other metric, and they were pretty good,” said Cousins, who set a career-high with 30 touchdown passes and also had a career-low 10 interceptions as a full-season starter. “I think it was a lack of explosive plays, [which led to] lower yards per attempt. If you look at other years that I’ve had, the yards per attempt has been higher, and the reason it’s been higher is because there’s been more explosive plays.
“Explosive plays are a critical stat to winning football games, and I think if I could look to something at the end of 2019, I think if the other metrics are all there like they were last year, but then the explosive plays are higher, [and] as a result, the yards per attempt are higher, I think that will be a very telling thing,” Cousins added. “I think we can be a lot better on third down, but I also think when you have explosive plays, you stay out of third down and give yourself a chance to score on first or second down without having to continually convert.
“Because odds are, eventually on third down, you can keep having to do it over and over … and you’re not going to convert,” Cousins continued. “So if you’re asking how I evaluate last year, that’s just one thing that stands out to me. That if we can get that shored up, I think the results will follow.”
Cousins isn’t wrong about the lack of explosive plays hurting his yards per attempt figure. For comparison’s sake, Vikings.com looked back at the quarterback’s 2016 season alongside his 2018 campaign. Oddly enough, Cousins attempted the same number of passes in each season, and each team also went 8-7-1.
Cousins in 2016: 406 of 606 (67%) for 4,917 yards with 25 TDs and 12 INTs — 8.1 yards per attempt
Cousins in 2018: 426 of 606 (70.1%) for 4,298 yards with 30 TDs and 10 INTs — 7.1 yards per attempt
A glance at the numbers shows Cousins completed a higher percentage of his passes in 2018, but threw for 619 less yards despite completing 20 more passes.
Why? Because in 2016 with Washington, he connected on a whopping 72 explosive plays, compared to the 46 with the Vikings in 2018.