Sacked four times and hit twice more in his 30 dropbacks in Chicago on Monday night, Kirk Cousins winced a bit as he threw while warming up for the Vikings' walkthrough session on Wednesday. Later, the team listed the quarterback as "limited" on its report with a rib injury; a source said an MRI had shown he has a cracked rib.
The injury report was an estimation, since the Vikings didn't technically practice, and Cousins returned to practice in full on Thursday. There is little doubt about his availability for Sunday's pivotal home game against the Rams. But even if it's a footnote, the injury has some significance: it's the first one to land the quarterback on an injury report since an ankle injury got him there in Week 1 of the 2013 season, when he was the backup in Washington.
Cousins, in other words, has made all 121 of his professional starts without an injury that has been bad enough to cost him practice snaps or land him on the report. It's a remarkable streak of durability made even more impressive by the fact he's worked under such duress, especially during his time with the Vikings. While he's only the 17th-most-pressured quarterback in the NFL this season, according to Pro Football Focus, he was tied for ninth during his final year in Washington. In his first three years with the Vikings, he finished fifth, eighth and third, respectively.
Before Cousins, Case Keenum was the third-most-pressured QB in 2017. Sam Bradford was only 13th in 2016, but Teddy Bridgewater was the most pressured passer in the league in 2015, after ranking fifth in 2014.
The Vikings, put simply, have asked their quarterbacks to hold up under high pressure for almost all of General Manager Rick Spielman and coach Mike Zimmer's time working together. Their playoff fate — and the futures of their decisionmakers — will be determined by a three-game stretch in which their biggest challenge might be keeping a Pro Bowl defensive tackle out of Cousins' face.
First up is Aaron Donald, the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year who's joined on the Rams' front by Leonard Floyd (nine sacks this year) and Von Miller (another possible future Hall of Famer).
Then comes a trip to Lambeau Field to face Packers tackle Kenny Clark, who has six sacks in his past eight games against the Vikings and should be joined by teammate Rashan Gary (who missed their Week 11 matchup because of an elbow injury). Finally, Akiem Hicks — a notorious Vikings killer — comes to U.S. Bank Stadium in what might be (and what the Vikings might hope is) his last game with the Bears.
"We've got to communicate well and make sure we're targeting the right people," Cousins said Wednesday. "And then, understand that sometimes they got you and they're bringing more from one side than you can block. That's when you have to be ready to get rid of the ball and your hot route and all of those things. You just have to be ready to target it right and play fast and make good decisions."
Cousins has talked in the past about admiring quarterbacks who kept their sack rates low, even through years when they had injury-plagued or inconsistent offensive lines, and he has done more to help himself in that regard this season. He has made some plays with his feet, and though he held the ball for an average of more than 3 seconds on Monday night, he ranks eighth in the league with an average release time of 2.59 seconds this season.
It has helped him take only 22 sacks through 14 games, after taking 39 last season. Right tackle Brian O'Neill has also been among the NFL's best pass blockers this season after signing a five-year extension; he is yet to give up a sack and has allowed just three hurries all year.
But while the Vikings line has improved in pass protection as a whole, the group has still been mediocre in keeping pockets clean for Cousins.
In PFF's OL Pass Blocking Efficiency metric, which measures pressures on a per-snap basis while giving more weight to sacks, this Vikings line ranks 17th. That's the best the group has done since 2017 (when it finished 12th) and the only other time in the Spielman/Zimmer era it has ranked higher than 23rd.
The metric has rated the Vikings offensive line one of the four worst pass-blocking units in the league three times in the past eight years (2020, 2018, 2015 and 2014), after the Vikings line finished ninth in 2013 and seventh in 2012.
And while the Vikings' run blocking has fared better than its pass protection for much of Spielman and Zimmer's time together, it's still been far from exemplary, grading in the top half of the league only three times in the past eight years and ranking 17th this year, per PFF.
The Vikings have tried just about everything. In 2016 and 2017, they agreed to contracts worth nearly $120 million for veterans such as Alex Boone, Andre Smith, Riley Reiff and Mike Remmers. From 2017 to 2021, they used six picks in the first three rounds of the draft on linemen. They have had five different starting line combinations this season, using COVID-19 or injuries as chances to shift players into new spots; they could use their sixth combination Sunday if Dakota Dozier starts over Oli Udoh with Mason Cole out because of an elbow injury.
None of it has removed the position group from the Vikings' list of worries. They'll try to protect Cousins against the Rams' pass rush, with Dalvin Cook on the COVID-19 list and unavailable as a counterpunch, and they'll hope their gumptious quarterback can pick himself up and sustain their playoff chase.
Short of that, the ongoing problem of protecting the Vikings' quarterbacks might be someone else's to solve.
