In the Vikings’ only loss since then, to Kansas City in Week 9, they allowed a 91-yard touchdown run and fell by a field goal as time ran out. Cousins’ name has crept into MVP conversations, as the result of a seven-game run in which he’s completed 73.3% of his passes for 2,020 yards and 18 touchdowns against one interception.
In doing so, he’s already made himself one of the surest things to play quarterback for the Vikings since General Manager Rick Spielman and Stefanski both entered the building in 2006. Cousins’ 27 starts for Minnesota are the fourth-most by a Vikings quarterback since then, and his 27-game starting streak is tied for the second-longest, behind Brett Favre’s 31 in a row in 2009-10. Cousins’ next win will be his 17th for the Vikings, tying him with Favre and Teddy Bridgewater for the most by a Minnesota QB in the same stretch.
Cousins has thrived in a scheme that brings back much of what he enjoyed in Washington, and resembles what two of his former coordinators are doing as head coaches: Kyle Shanahan for the 49ers and Sean McVay for the Rams. According to Sharp Football Stats, the Vikings have put Cousins under center 72% of the time, more than any QB in the league (with the 49ers’ Jimmy Garoppolo second and the Rams’ Jared Goff third).
He has thrived on play-action, when he’s thrown 12 of his 18 TDs, according to Pro Football Focus. His red zone production — long seen as a flaw in Cousins’ game — has rarely been better; the Vikings have the NFL’s fifth-best red zone TD percentage, after Cousins had quarterbacked teams that ranked eighth, 16th, 29th and 21st in his first four years as a starter.
During the week, he operates under the tutelage of a staff that includes Stefanski, a former Super Bowl-winning head coach (Gary Kubiak) and offensive coordinator (Rick Dennison), and Kubiak’s son Klint, whom Stefanski eagerly wanted as the Vikings’ quarterbacks coach
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