The Stat that likes Cousins more than Mahomes
Detailed preview of Sunday Night Football, including an up-and-down season for the Vikings
DALLAS COWBOYS (5-1) AT MINNESOTA VIKINGS (3-3), 8:20ET
Line: Vikings -3, Total: 51.5
ONE THING THAT EVERY FAN NEEDS TO KNOW
Dichotomy of Opposition
With Dak Prescott (calf) setting up to be a true game-time decision, we’ll spend the majority of this post discussing the Minnesota Vikings, a team we have yet to feature in the STAT Stack. But before we do, we should mention that QB Cooper Rush took some first-team snaps for the Cowboys this week. He’s been a Cowboys’ backup for the majority of his career after they picked him up as an undrafted free agent in 2017 (out of Central Michigan). Rush has thrown three passes in his NFL career, completing one of them for two yards. He has not thrown an NFL pass since November 19, 2017. It’s safe to say that the move from Prescott to Rush would represent a considerable drop-off and would greatly change the complexity of this game.
Minnesota has had a strange season thus far, splitting its first six games. The Vikings lost on opening weekend to Cincinnati, the current AFC #1 seed. In Week 2, they lost to the Arizona Cardinals, the NFC’s current #2 seed. In those games against two of the NFL’s top teams, the Vikings lost by a total of four points. They cruised past the Seahawks in Week 3 before losing to Cleveland in Week 4. Cleveland is currently in a playoff spot in the AFC. The Vikings have won their past two over the winless Lions and the sliding Panthers (whose loss to Minnesota was their fourth straight). The Vikings have not beaten a team with a winning record this season, but they also haven’t lost to a team with a losing record. The combined record of the teams they’ve lost to is 16-6; the combined record of the teams they’ve beaten is 5-16.
The bad news for Vikings fans is that the Cowboys have a 5-1 record. The good news is that they may be without their starting quarterback and MVP candidate. Whether or not he plays could go a long way in determining whether Minnesota finally gets a win over a winning team.
TRENDS THAT EVERY SPORTS BETTOR NEEDS TO KNOW
Hard to Handicap
The tough part about trying to dissect this game from a gambling perspective is that Dak Prescott’s availability plays a massive factor. The Vikings are currently -3, as sportsbooks guard against the possibility of Prescott missing the contest. If he’s ruled out, this line is likely to move to around 10. If he does play, it could slide back towards the Cowboys. Because of that, it doesn’t make sense for us to share the usual betting and money info; most of the bets placed have been without the knowledge that Prescott’s status is up in the air. It will also change massively once a call is made on his status. If you decide to make a play on that, you assume the risk involved with trying to guess whether a player will play or not.
We will remind you that Dallas went 5-6 against-the-spread after Dak Prescott was hurt last season. This year, the Cowboys are 6-0 ATS; they are the only team in the NFL who has yet to drop a game against-the-spread. Kirk Cousins is often considered to be the perfect example of an average NFL quarterback, and his career record against-the-spread and straight-up supports that assertion. For his career, Kirk Cousins is 55-56-2 straight-up and 57-55-1 ATS. He and the Vikings have been worse at home, however, failing to cover in six of their past seven home games.
ANALYTICAL ANALYSIS THAT EVERY SPORTS NERD NEEDS TO KNOW
The Stat that Hates Mahomes and Loves Cousins
Last Sunday, we took an in-depth at a statistic that seems to undersell the ability of Patrick Mahomes: completion percentage over expectation (xCOMP +/-). That stat was invented by Next Gen Stats and is the difference between a quarterback’s completion percentage (COMP%) and their expected completion percentage (xCOMP%). If you need a refresher, go check out the analytics section of the Chiefs matchup against the Titans here.
While that stat seems to hate Patrick Mahomes, it LOVES Kirk Cousins. Cousins has ranked in the Top 4 in each of the three seasons that he’s been in Minnesota. He is the only quarterback to achieve that feat, though Russell Wilson was in the Top 5 in each of those seasons. Cousins and Wilson are the only two passers who posted an xCOMP% +/- of +4.0 or better in each of those seasons.
This season, Cousins ranks seventh through six games at +3.0. Since the beginning of last season, Cousins has become a more aggressive passer. In 2018 and 2019, his aggressiveness percentage was 12.8% according to Next Gen Stats. That stat measures how often a quarterback throws into tight coverage, which is defined as having a defender within 1 yard when the ball reaches the target. Last year, his aggressiveness jumped up to 16.1% and this year it’s 15.5%.
So why does Kirk Cousins, a player is universally believed to be around league average, rank among the game’s elite in this statistical category? The simple answer is that he’s been surrounded by incredible pass-catchers during his time in Minnesota and they frequently catch passes that otherwise would not be completed. Adam Thielen has been around since Cousins’ tenure began and averages over five catches per game. For the first two seasons, he had Stefon Diggs, who caught 165 passes from Cousins in Minnesota. And in Diggs absence, 2020 first-round pick Justin Jefferson has picked up where he left off, snagging 129 passes in his first 22 games (5.9 receptions/game).
In his last season in Washington, Cousins had a -0.6 xCOMP +/-. His top receiver on that team was Jamison Crowder. The previous year, 2016, Cousins led the league in xCOMP +/- at +8.4. That’s the highest-mark ever recorded since the stat was introduced in 2016. But he was still in Washington, so what happened? DeSean Jackson is what happened. Jackson had 56 catches for 1,005 yards, averaging 17.9 yards per catch. He was often targeted deep down the field, passes that would not be expected to be completed, but Jackson came down with many of them. He was one of two 1,000-yard receivers on the team, as Pierre Garcon had 79 catches for 1,041 yards. Jamison Crowder, the team’s best pass-catching option in 2017, was the third option in this offense. While many don’t consider Garcon among the elite wide receivers in recent years, he quietly played 11 years in the NFL, accruing 628 catches and 7,854 yards.
Cousins is a great example of what happens when you surround a solid NFL quarterback with elite talent around him. When Cousins was surrounded with All-Pro receivers, he thrived. When he wasn’t, he didn’t.