The NFL’s Next Gen Stats website is fun to mess around on if you’re a football fan, but Kirk Cousins might not want to look at it.
The stats break down everything, from Cousins’ completions, incompletions, touchdowns, interceptions, how much time he has to throw and many other great insights to the game.
And you’ll get a kick out of this: Cousins is tied with Aaron Rodgers through three weeks averaging the MOST time to throw the ball on passing plays. Yep, Minnesota’s offensive line has given Cousins an average of 3.06 seconds to throw.
That’s a half-second more than Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes, whose passer ratings – 134.9 for Mahomes, 116.5 for Brady – are light years ahead of Cousins’ 86.9 passer rating.
Another interesting stat is what Next Gen Stats’ Aggressive tracker. Here’s what it is.
“Aggressiveness tracks the amount of passing attempts a quarterback makes that are into tight coverage, where there is a defender within 1 yard or less of the receiver at the time of completion or incompletion. AGG is shown as a % of attempts into tight windows over all passing attempts.”
Just 11.1% of Cousins’ attempts this season qualify as aggressive, meaning he’s not making the most difficult throws. Only Kyle Allen, who has played one game, Drew Brees, who got hurt in his second game, and Mahomes are making fewer aggressive throws than Cousins.
Not being aggressive isn’t a bad thing, clearly, as Mahomes puts up otherworldly numbers without firing darts into tight or closed windows. But the fact that Cousins is still only completing 58.7% of his passes is a little unnerving. The only quarterback to play in all three games and complete a lower percentage of his attempts is Cleveland’s Baker Mayfield (56.9%).
Now to the charts.
Cousins Week 1: He did what he needed to do on just 10 attempts.
Cousins Week 2: When he passes left of the left hashes, he was 7-of-8 with a touchdown. Everywhere else he was 7-of-24 with two interceptions.
Cousins Week 3: Again, he did what he had to do in limited opportunities.
The Green Bay game definitely mars Cousins’ overall numbers, but with all the time the offensive line is apparently giving him, he need to be completing a higher percentage of his throws.
Unfortunately, that might not happen this week when the Vikings face a stingy Bears defense at Soldier Field.
