Kirk Cousins vs. Case Keenum on downfield passing
Brickwallblitz
|
Since Kirk Cousins signed with the Vikings in March, a lot of Vikings fans are wondering how he compares to Case Keenum. Is he better? Is he more accurate? Does he have more of the sacred clutch gene?
Well, I’m going to strip down the comparisons with a smaller sample: How much better was Kirk Cousins than Case Keenum on downfield passing?
If you guys follow me on Twitter, you know that I do the Deep Ball Project every offseason. The Deep Ball Project charts throws of 16+ air yards and measures them in terms of accuracy. For this year’s edition, I added a boatload of new statistics, the most prominent being Efficiency Score.
What is Efficiency Score? Well, it takes a look at not only how accurate a quarterback was, but also if he took care of the ball throwing downfield. There’s also a points system which dictates how the scores are handled, as explained below:
16-19 air yards=1 point (Pressure/Tight Window=2, Both=3)
20-24=2 points (Pressure/Tight Window=3, Both=4)
25-29=3 points (Pressure/Tight Window=4, Both=5)
30-34=4 points (Pressure/Tight Window=5, Both=6)
35-39=5 points (Pressure/Tight Window=6, Both=7)
40+=6 points (Pressure/Tight Window=7, Both=8)
-3 points are taken away if the receiver has to adjust for no reason, if the pass is picked off and the throw is on the quarterback, or if a dropped pick occurs and it’s the quarterbacks fault.
Straight up inaccurate incompletions are given zero points.
The total number is divided by the total amount of deep pass attempts. That results in the efficiency score.
Case Keenum had by far the worst efficiency score of any of the 35 quarterbacks charted for the 2017-18 edition of the Deep Ball Project.
Across all fronts, Keenum’s accuracy percentage (ACC%) was terrible. Even with the 5th highest rate of open window passes, his accuracy in that area was still 28th. He also threw 15 inaccurate completions, easily the most of the 17-18 DBP. Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs made it way too easy for him and constantly adjusted on inaccurate throws.
Kirk Cousins was better, but not by much.
Cousins’ accuracy into open windows is a big step up from Keenum’s, but his tight window accuracy is almost as bad. He did receive far less play action than Keenum and more tight windows, but also faced less pressure. In addition, Josh Doctson prevented four interceptions on downfield passes alone.
Both quarterbacks also took huge hits on their efficiency scores thanks to dropped interceptions. When you come right down to it, the Vikings let go of Case Keenum and signed an even more expensive, slightly better, less mobile version of him. The Vikings still have a team surrounding him that can compete for the Super Bowl, but will they be able to thrive with Cousins or be anchored by him and get one upped by the Eagles?
Time will tell.