Cousins's brilliant performance undermined by incredible number of miscues

Another brilliant performance by Vikings' QB isn't enough to make up for costly errors in loss to the Cowboys

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The Chicago Bears are terrible. The Dallas Cowboys are terrible. But they are NFL teams with talent and there was only so many mistakes that the Minnesota Vikings could get away with in the span of two weeks and still come out alive in the playoff hunt.

The Vikings got away with making an unacceptable number of mistakes against the Bears on Monday Night Football with fumbles, interceptions and special teams errors. Against Dallas, the Cowboys made them pay in a 31-28 win that dropped the Vikings to 4-6 on the year.

The Vikings opened Sunday’s matchup with the 2-7 Cowboys in the fashion of a team that was ready for a classic letdown game. After winning three in a row, the Vikings returned to US Bank Stadium with a chance on Sunday (Rams/Bucs pending) to come within one game of the seventh playoff spot. They began the game like they wanted nothing to do with the playoff race.

Following a three-and-out by the Cowboys, punt returner KJ Osborn fumbled a punt. While the Vikings recovered Osborn’s fumble, quarterback Kirk Cousins got strip-sacked five plays into the drive and set up Dallas and backup QB Andy Dalton for the game’s first touchdown.

The Vikings bounced back because of Cousins. For a team that calls itself “run first,” they have certainly put a lot of pressure on Cousins to come to their rescue over the last two weeks. The Vikings’ QB led a 12-play drive in which he overcame a chop block penalty with two throws to Irv Smith Jr. and then set up a Dalvin Cook touchdown by converting a key third down pass to Adam Thielen.

Dalton, who looks nothing like the starting quarterback that was once at the top of the league in QB rating in 2015, threw a pass behind his intended receiver on the ensuing drive and it was picked off by Eric Kendricks.

Last week in Chicago, the Vikings continually put Cousins behind the stick and they seemed content to do it again in the first half. After the Kendricks INT, Cousins dropped a brilliant ball into the bread basket of superstar rookie Justin Jefferson for 27 yards. The following three plays went run, run, screen and the Vikings lined up to punt.

That’s where things got really messy.

The Vikings faked a punt and punter Britton Colquitt tossed a perfect pass to wide open Kris Boyd. However, the play was called back for an illegal motion. When the Vikings did punt the ball on the next play, Boyd committed a rarely-seen block in the back on the punting team, setting up Dalton and the Cowboys at mid-field.

The Vikings’ defense allowed a first down on a fourth-and-1 try when receiver CeeDee Lamb took a reverse to move the sticks. And then Dalton flipped a wobbling pass into the air that was snagged in miraculous fashion by Lamb for a touchdown to put Dallas up by six.

Dallas did everything they could to avoid taking advantage of Vikings mistakes, failing on fourth down on the next drive but the Vikings kept throwing errors at them like it was the job. With a chance to score before the half and “double dip,” Cook took a screen pas for 26 yards. He fumbled the next throw his way.

Again Dallas failed to completely take advantage, settling for a field goal at the goal line with just seconds remaining in the half.

All said and done in the first half, the Vikings racked up two turnovers and 60 yards of penalties.

In the second half, however, Cousins started slinging — and the Vikings finally let him.

The Vikings opened the third quarter with a 51-yard deep crossing route from Cousins to Thielen. When Dallas stuffed Cook at the goal line several times (on runs right out of the 1991 playbook i.e. I-formation, run up the middle), Cousins again flipped a beautiful ball into the back of the end zone where Thielen made his second incredible touchdown catch in two weeks.

Even trailing 16-14 at that point, it felt like the Vikings’ offense was going to be too much for the NFL’s worst defense in points per game allowed.

The Cowboys punted and Cousins got right back to work cooking — and this time it even included Jefferson.

Following another mind-numbing penalty, an offensive facemask on Bisi Johnson, Cousins completed a 20-yard bullet to Jefferson for a first down.

Cousins likes to say that a receiver like Jefferson “makes you right” about decisions. That’s been extremely true this year.

The Dallas defense started to loosen up a bit against then run and Cook peeled off carries of eight and seven yards to push the Vikings to the goal line. Again, Cousins to Thielen was successful.

Mike Zimmer’s defense has been performing at a high level in big situations recently. That wasn’t exactly true on Sunday. With the Vikings finally up 21-16, cornerback Chris Jones whiffed on a tackle and running back Tony Pollard cruised to the end zone to give Dallas back the lead 24-21.

Back to you, Kirk!

Cousins continued to carry the team on his back on the following drive, htting Thielen for another completion and then launching it 39 yards over the shoulder of Jefferson to put the Vikings back on top.

Next Gen Stats @NextGenStats

Kirk Cousins & Justin Jefferson (39-yard TD) ➤ Air Distance: 50.3 yards ➤ Receiver Separation: 0.8 yards ➤ Completion Probability: 26.4% Cousin has 21 TD passes with a completion probability under 30% since 2018, trailing only Russell Wilson (22). #DALvsMIN | #Skol

This is what we expected Sunday’s game to look like. The Cowboys were without cornerback Trevon Diggs and entered allowing opposing QBs a passer rating of 103.1, fourth worst in the NFL. They had no chance against Thielen and Jefferson.

The Vikings finally gave Cousins a hand with just over six minutes remaining, sacking Dalton and knocking a pass out of the air and back into Dalton’s hands for a three-yard loss, forcing the Cowboys to punt.

But this time the offense didn’t come through. Cousins threw two straight incompletions under duress and gave the ball back to Dallas with a chance for the Cowboys to pull the upset.

On fourth-and-6, Dalton found Amari Cooper for a first down. Boyd then continued his rough day, dropping an INT in the end zone. The Cowboys then completed a wide open touchdown pass on third down to take a 31-28 lead.

Back to you again, Kirk!

This time even Jefferson got in on the act of letting down his quarterback, dropping an easy underneath pass that would have resulted in a first down.

On fourth down, Cousins was pressured and heaved it up to nobody to finish off the loss.

Under no circumstances should a quarterback go 22-for-30 with a 140.1 quarterback rating and lose. But Cousins’s supporting cast made sure of it. That’s what 4-6 teams do.

At least it was fun talking about the playoffs for a few weeks.

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