Current Fans May Not Have Survived the Start of Fran Tarkenton’s Career
Dustin Baker
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Many of today’s quarterback rankings or supremacy debates are rooted in the subject of quarterback wins. That is, rather than exalting individual statistics like passing yards, passing touchdowns, DVOA, or Pro Football Focus grades — you know, the items an individual quarterback can control — wins and losses are assigned to his name. Just as a tennis fan would prop up a tennis player’s win-loss numbers, quarterbacks get lassoed in that, too.
Never mind the notion that a head coach exists on every NFL team to be held accountable for winning percentage — pundits and fans enjoy holding one person (the quarterback) of 53 players as the keyholder for victories. It is beyond reasonable to adjudicate head coaches for win losses as he/she controls the entirety of the enterprise. Things get strange when a single person of 53 is solely glued to the success of a franchise.
For fans and critics of the Minnesota Vikings, the quarterback record barometer follows quarterback Kirk Cousins ad nauseam. The 32-year-old passer has started 104 career games, and he tees up an even-steven quarterback record: 51-51-2. It gets no more mathematically average than that; the mark is the pinnacle of mediocrity.
Indeed, Cousins accrued most of his infamous 51-51-2 with the Washington Football Team — the squad that employed Samaje Perine, Robert Kelley, Chris Thompson, and Matt Jones with some semblance of RB1 designation. Washington also ranked 28th in the league for yards allowed per game on defense during Cousins’ tenure as a starter. Yet, none of that matters. Cousins did not uplift the team from its poor rushing and defensive rankings single-handedly.
The 51-51-2 means that Cousins is not universally championed as a competent quarterback. Adjectives like “overpaid” or “stat-padding” infect his reputation — mainly because his quarterback record is perfectly middling.
Conversely, ask any Vikings fan about Fran Tarkenton. That person will gush starry-eyed praise. Tarkenton is the best Vikings signal-caller in team history, securing an infallible status.
A little-known fact: Through his first 104 starts — the number of games Cousins has started to date — Tarkenton’s quarterback record was 41-59-4 (.413). This span was 1961 from 1968, slightly before the Vikings defense really metamorphosized.
By the method NFL brains tend to think in contemporary terms, well, Tarkenton would indisputably be considered a quarterback that simply couldn’t get the job done. “On to the next one” at quarterback might be Vikings fans’ mentality if guys and gals from 2021 transported back to the 1960s. Other sentiments like “he doesn’t drag the team to wins” could be referenced.
In the 104 starts after Tarkenton’s first 104, his team became upper-echelon. He tabulated a 64-39-1 (.620) in his “second” 104 starts. This is the next batch of games that Cousins will encounter. It remains to be seen if he can mimic Tarkenton’s 105th thru 208th starts. But, hey, that’s where the essence of patience sets in — a personality trait largely absent from personalities inside The Digital Age.
It’s not just Cousins and Tarkenton either. Here are somewhat similar records to Cousins’ through 104 starts:
- Warren Moon = 47-57
- Matthew Stafford = 49-55
- Boomer Esiason = 53-51
- Dan Fouts = 53-50-1
- Drew Brees = 54-50
All in all, Cousins will necessitate a marvelous “next 100 games” in his career, aided by a defense much like Tarkenton’s Purple People Eaters, to be compared to Tarkenton. If it’s more of the same from the Vikings or Cousins’ next team, he might be stuck around a .500 career record — just like Eli Manning finished his career. The New York Giants quarterback finished his career with a 117-117 quarterback record.