Bercich Breakdown: Kirk Cousins is back, what does it mean for the season?

Time now for the Bursitz Breakdown, and boy, do we have a lot to break down. Kurt Cousins is back. He is out at the practice facility, and Pete, would you like to guess the first song that was played over the speakers out there? I don't know. They were playing Creed. Can you take it higher? That's Kurt's song when he left last time. That was the first song coming out of the speakers out at the facility when he took to the field this afternoon. That's good. Make him feel as home as possible. So there's a lot of work for him to do. All right, what is the biggest step for him to overcome? In jumping back into this, we know he has familiarity with the players and the playbook and the head coach, but still, you're doing this in the middle of the season, and you only have a couple days of practice before you're standing on Lambeau Field. Yeah, and that would make you think that they're going to simplify some things, and by simplifying I don't necessarily mean... running different plays, but you may cut down on the motions and the shifts and all those things, all the very verbose things that go on before the play, unless you put them on a wristband or something for them, at least for week one, just to get them through. It's like learning English and then you get traded to a different team and you got to learn German. You start speaking German for a little while and you go somewhere else and speak French. Now you got to come back and speak English again and you got to revive all of that in your head. Thank you, Fred. The main challenge is just going to be the process, getting them in and out of the huddle. So, you know, You know, we saw these are all areas that we struggled with on Monday night. On top of that, you've got a guy who's only been here, like you said, a couple of days. I love the leadership. I love some of the things that he said in his press conference. And hopefully his presence, I mean, let's face it, Kirk's got enough money. He's got enough. He doesn't need any more money. He's doing this because he wants to win, right? When you get older in the league, you start thinking about your legacy. And I think he sees an opportunity here or a window here. That he can maybe take advantage of, and I think that if it is his motivation, then that's a true motivation, and I think it'll keep him going. Um, but. But just the guys that know him, especially guys like Justin Jefferson, will perk up. And have more faith that the ball is going to get to him on target and on time. And for the younger guys who maybe haven't played with him, especially the guys up front in the offensive line, hopefully he has a command enough of the offense and a presence to make those guys pick their game up a little bit too. So you're inserting a leader into this unit that needs some direction and needs someone to lead from the front. We'll see if Kirk is that guy, but there's a lot of other things to it. We can get into the numbers and some of the other things about the fit itself, but from a 10,000-foot level, that's how I see this. All right. Well, you love the numbers, and that's what the viewers always say, that you give it. The information that they can't find anywhere else. What numbers are jumping out at you? I mean, Kirk Cousins with the Raiders were sensational this year. Or are you looking at this matchup against Green Bay and where the Vikings offense is at? Well, I mean, there's a little bit of both before we get into Green Bay. Okay. Um, Kevin O'Connell in his press conference mentioned he got to see some film on Kirk a couple weeks, you know, and basically the Raiders-Buffalo game he got a chance to see, and I watched Kirk in that game, and he had numbers were good and everything, but there wasn't a ton of things downfield. They were quicker throws underneath outlets, all those kinds of things. So I just think people... For expectations, don't expect this to be back in 2022 or 2023. We might take some deep shots, don't get me wrong. But it's not going to be, I think, that deep of a downfield offense right off the bat. The Raiders and Cousins is around 202, but they had about 209 completions so far this year. I'm talking about the Las Vegas Raiders. A hundred and twenty nine of those two hundred nine went to either two tight ends or the running back. All right. That's the type of passing game that he's been very efficient with and he's been working with. And so it just gives you I think that just gives you a little not necessarily tempering the expectations, but just the expectation, because. Being here with this offense, what do we really need on offense, right? We need on offense is to not turn the football over. Yeah. When Byron Murphy intercepts that pass from Josh Allen and takes it back to midfield at that point in the game and then to turn it back over on a play that Coach O'Connell said after practice, we worked on making sure that that wasn't a lateral. To do that is such a momentum killer. Right. I mean, right from that point on. And they battled and they fought. And still within with seven, eight minutes left to go in the game, it was still a one-score game. So we don't need a ton out of the offense, right? We just need some time of possession. We just need an offense. It's all right. And then take what they give you. And I think that's the other big part of this is over the last couple of weeks, especially Buffalo, even Detroit, Detroit was more of a matchup thing because of injuries, but the guys that they were trotting out at corner and with Buffalo as well. I mean, teams only ran the ball 38% of the time against Buffalo because the path of least resistance was through the air, but we couldn't exploit it. So it's two weeks in a row against the two number one offenses, and we can't exploit their defenses through the air. That needs to happen. And, you know, we'll get there, I think, with Kirk, But, uh... So immediately get them in the huddle, get them lined up, get the snap off on time, and don't throw it away. If we can do that, the game will be close. We'll be in it. We'll hang in it. And then we can be patient with the hope of knowing as Cousins gets more and more familiar again with this offense, we can get a little bit more explosive. The other thing that you need to watch closely, Directly tied with Cousins. In his 64, 65% completion ratio, whatever it was, he had a 97 rating, somewhere near 100. Right, yep. He's only been sacked 11 times this year, right? The Vikings have given up 23, and that's with a more mobile quarterback for the most part. So you need to protect him. And we've known it before, but that's how you get Cousins to make a mistake, right? You get pressure on him. You know where he's going to be. So a lot of that's going to fall on our offensive line. The Raiders did a very good job, I think, of keeping people away from him. Did he get hit? Did he get sacked? Yes, absolutely. But they did a pretty good job, for the most part, giving him time in the backfield. And if you give him time, he's going to be good. I mean, if you turn this into a seven-on-seven drill... He's going to be good, and so that's the other part of that challenge. Can we keep him protected? Can we not turn the football over? Can we continue to run the ball or get back to running the ball and just straighten out the turnovers, the time of possession, all those things that helped us get to 6-0 even though we weren't scoring points. But it's... If you look at this team statistically, it's a pretty bizarre year, right? Oh, yeah. They've only given up 10 touchdowns on defense. All right. We're one of, what, two or three teams in 20 years that's won six games with 11 touchdowns in their first eight. It's so bizarre. It is. It's a very bizarre, how do you say it, way outside the bell curve type of a season. Yeah, all right. So let's inject the Packers' defense into this. And going outside and Lambeau Field. The weather shouldn't be too bad. Temperature should be normal. No precipitation. Long-range forecasts are telling us that. So what does Green Bay bring? What have you seen in the Packers? They're obviously rolling right now offensively, but we need for the Vikings offense to stay on the field. To have drives that allow Flores troops to regenerate because that's how they got beat against Detroit and Buffalo. It's just they were out there all day. You can't be out there for 70 snaps. You're eventually going to crack and crumble. Yeah, there's some changes with the offensive line. Bakke Boyle was the right tackle. They have Anthony Belton out there now. Laken Tomlinson, John Williams is their center. Aaron Banks is probably their best offensive lineman at left guard, at least recently, how he's playing. And Jordan Morgan, I think, without Josh Jacobs, they're going to have a hard time running the football. This is the first team in two weeks. That hasn't had a running game that you had to worry about. I think Detroit is probably one of the most physical offensive lines in the league. You know, And then when you tag Jameer Gibbs onto that, they can wear you out. The Bills can do it too, but not so much. James Cook isn't as physical. He's as fast. He may be faster, the whole thing. Um, But my point is there's two teams in a row that could... They can get you at the running game at the end. I don't think the Packers are there. So they're going to really have to – they're much more one-dimensional. And they're one-dimensional in a way that I think with Flores and his defense, you prefer. You almost prefer a team to have to protect the quarterback and throw the football than if they just want to line up and pound it, right, and line up and run it. Exactly. So, yeah. And let's face it, Jordan Love's playing very well. He's feeling it. Throwing off the back leg doesn't matter. I mean, he's... You're getting Christian Watson running clearing routes, and he's throwing them deep in double coverage and splitting them. So everything's going their way in the passing game right now. Matthew Golden is catching everything, at least in the last week or so, but most everything thrown his way. He has a lot. Love has a lot of confidence in Golden now. They're designing stuff where the formations of the boundary and Golden's over there one-on-one, and then if the corner's rolled up, he's just going to throw it. uh explosive vertical passing game uh that we're going to need to control and doing that is getting the Jordan Love and you know Savion Williams is almost a they give him the he's a good wiggle guy and they're they're getting they're handing them off on reverses and things like that to try to help out the running game but right now it's uh Pierre Strong and Caleb Johnson those are the running backs and uh So you know Green Bay is going to have to air this thing out. All right, usually we don't talk about emotions a lot in these discussions, but I think this week you almost have to. That seems like an X factor. One, that's the field that Kirk tore his Achilles on, so he's going back there. He's coming in. You're playing your biggest rival. The team was down in the dumps Tuesday morning I'm assuming after that Buffalo game where you have the number one defense on one side of the room and the worst offense in the league perhaps on the other side. So it looked like that was going to perhaps boil over. And then all of a sudden comes this ejection of Cousins. I mean, do they kind of alluded to a little bit, you know, don't expect 80 yard bombs. But does everybody kind of have to refocus here and pay attention to detail? You know, because they feel like Kurt walked in the door, season's back on track, we're Super Bowl bound. Well, yeah, I think the – hopefully it will be a shot in the arm for the defense. We saw Flores more than we have at any point this year substitute early, right? All right. Jake Golday was getting in there. Ivan Pace was getting in there. I mean, they had, I mean, they were, we were getting, we were getting backups in there and rotating, you know, even with Caleb Banks not suiting up, which was interesting. So Dominique Orange, I mean, these guys all got in there and played quite a bit. Um. You know, the health of Cashman will be interesting, but. Yeah, that's going to motivate them, but is it going to help them in the third series after playing 80 snaps on a short week, right? That's kind of the question that you have to ask. So the possession of the ball and keeping those guys off the field as much as you can. Is is a big thing. It is a thing. And so are we far enough along offensively that we can do that? And, you know, that's that's how this game is kind of setting up. And but I do believe. But defensively, we can give them a good run for their money if those guys are still. And that's why I'm going back to the run game, Jim, right? You're like tired legs. These guys are in a short week. You know, where would you get leaky? You know, where does that show up first? Well, it shows up in the running game with the arm tackles and things like that. So, if Green Bay's not quite... You know, it's physical up front and the running game isn't quite as dominant. You know, maybe, you know, they won't be able to wear us out as quickly. Now, if they can score on three and five play drives, then that's something completely different, right? But if we make them march up and down the field, then we might have a little bit there. So it's going to be fun to watch how all this plays out. It's just too bad it's a short week. Yeah. How about Lambeau? I mean, we know it's your favorite place to hang out. Have you softened at all over the years from... About what? Well, your disdain for the green and gold. I mean... I played my first game at Lambeau Field. My dad played his first game in the NFL at Lambeau Field. So, yeah, it's a special place. No question about it. It's unique. You get to go to an NFL game and sit on a steel bench like you're going to a college game, which that's fantastic. Fantastic. You know, it's unique. Everything about it you love because it's all about football. It's just in Green Bay. And, yeah, I expect people in Wisconsin to be Green Bay fans. I just don't expect half the people that you bump into at the grocery store to be wearing their Packer garbage everywhere. It's like, go back to where you came from, right? Just leave that there. It's a pretty unique rivalry. And, you know, the reason it's such a good rivalry is because they're so good, and they've been so good back to the Brett Favre days and all that. So, um... Yeah, it's okay to not like somebody because it's just a rivalry. It's not a bad one. It's not like you're going into Philly, right? No, I enjoy it. The people that are in that stadium are great. Like I said, it's just a fun game. I know. I know. Justin Jefferson, how important is this for him? Where does his expectations go now? We see he's getting to the point where he was frustrated the last couple of weeks with the kind of balls he had to try to reel in. Where does he have to take his game? What does he have to do for Kirk to make this work again like it did so well when Cousins was here before? Yeah. I, the only concern I have is just the rhythm of the whole thing. Um, you know, there, JJ hasn't had a lot, a lot of 10, 8, 10, 12 catch games, right. Where you get into that rhythm. So, and that might take a little, that might take a little bit of time. So I'm just kind of tempering my expectations, you know, a little bit, um, early. One of the things with Kirk that you hear about is accuracy. Nolan Teasley even talked about that. Um, you know, intelligence and, and, and accuracy. So those guys know that the football is going to be close to, or right where it needs to be for them to make the catches. And this is for Addison too, but those guys haven't been super involved in a game plan in a long time, long time. And so, um, we'll see, we'll see, we'll see very quickly how JJ is running his routes, how Addison's running his routes, how everybody's running their routes. T.J. Hockenson too. We knew that Kyler Murray liked his tight ends. Well, right now, Kirk Cousins really loves his tight ends, right? Now, he had a great one in Las Vegas, but Hockinson is another big target for Cousins as well. So if you have faith and you know that the ball is going to be where it needs to be when it needs to be there, then you will have, I think, much more vested interest in getting yourself there. And a little more faith in everybody around him. So hopefully that juices up the entire room. And last thing for you, Kirk Cousins, how much different of a quarterback is he now from when he walked away? Um... Yeah, I mean, visibly the arm strength is still there. The accuracy is still there. It's just, like I had said before, not as much of a down the field. Uh, type of a thrower, like, and that's, but then that's just part of what the Las Vegas Raiders, that could be what their offense is based on, but it's a lot more underneath quick controlled routes, that sort of thing, quick drops. Um, and you know, I think he, he was doing a really nice job in getting the ball out quickly and getting it, getting it where it was supposed to go. And that helped with that sack number that helped with the efficiency of the offense. And so unfortunately for them, they, they got like against 49ers, they got behind very quickly. It was a couple of games where they, they were playing catch up, even the bills trying to keep up with, with the opposing offenses. And so then You didn't necessarily get pass heavy. But... Yeah, I think he's not far off from what he was. I mean, there's no definite or observable decline in skill per se from when he was here two years ago. All right, Peter Bursich, thank you so much. We will see you Sunday on Fox 9, game day live, 9.30 in the morning. Then the game itself, he'll be on the audio call with Paul Allen and then coming right back here, 10.35 for Vikings postgame tonight. Peter, thank you so much for the time. Thanks, Jim.