Interesting Cowherd Analogy on Darnold v. Cousins

And Nick Mullens is the busboy.

StickierBuns wrote:
I actually watched the show yesterday, classic Colin analogy. He's good at these kinds of comparisons, but they also are always a little flawed or more to the point, highly convenient for his message. This particular take I do agree with and we will see 'Sloppy Sam' from time to time, but I think that's probably mostly refreshing for the Viking's fanbase after Kirk's conservativeness. There's no way that Kirko would have made that throw to Jefferson for the 97 yard pass because Nailor was also open underneath for about a 25 yard gain: that's where Cousins would have looked.

No way to know for sure, but I agree. I posted a clip of Cousins running the exact same concept against the 49ers last year and he threw to the crosser. Good pass, 1st down, but deep was open to Addison for a TD. I think that's why they came back to it.

They said it was a dagger concept and that name suits it perfectly. Sammy was going for the kill

Considering that Kirk set records with a couple of Vikings receivers including a number of highlight reel deep passes...I find the "captain checkdown" narrative to be incomplete to the point of ridiculous.

Kirk didn't, and doesn't, lack for ambition...as those records would seem to indicate...but, armchair wannabes with slo-mo and 20 camera angles sure love to talk s**t.

Zanary wrote:
Considering that Kirk set records with a couple of Vikings receivers including a number of highlight reel deep passes...I find the "captain checkdown" narrative to be incomplete to the point of ridiculous.

Kirk didn't, and doesn't, lack for ambition...as those records would seem to indicate...but, armchair wannabes with slo-mo and 20 camera angles sure love to talk s**t.

Kirk is absolutely not captain check down. I agree that this narrative was nonsense when you have real data that shows he not only threw deep more than most, but he was one of the best in the NFL at doing it. The differences in how each ran the dagger concept does not a valid narrative make. 

However, I DO think Cowherd makes some sense in describing Cousins as the more formulaic and precise QB and Darnold is maybe more willing to adapt and improvise. I can see that.

IMO Darnold hasn't earned the right to be compared to KC yet.

God I hate the sports media right now...

They'll be preaching same olde Sam as soon as he has a bad game.

When Darnold breaks the 4,000 yards per season threshhold, then we can start making comparisons. The body of work is far to shallow to make any comparisons, and I won't. I do think he is more of an accurate artist from the limited snaps I've seen so far. In the interim, I'm just going to enjoy watching this rather interesting machine between KOC's offense and BFlo's defense work some form of magic.

Sam CAN be what a lot of us wished for in Kirk: all the arm, veteran instincts, strong pocket presence (when our pocket holds up LOOKING AT YOU, INGRAM), but with added mobility and aggression.

Hence, all my posts about the "Sam Darnold Redemption Tour" this year. I don't know what's going on between his ears, but on paper...he makes a magnificent comeback story, and our team makes a great place for a QB to recover from a bad start.

If his time in SF, combined with the rah-rah nature of KOC, managed to undo any damage from two bad teams and related confidence hits...we may have a genuine QB quandry coming up, the best kind!

It's two games, and we have a lot of big tests early...but, with revenge secured against the Giants and SF put back in their place, the Texans should be just another good opportunity to prove the Vikings' place in the postseason discussion.