Kirk Cousins' 2022 season ended in January when he threw short of the line of scrimmage on 4th-and-8, leading to days (weeks? months?) of talk about what could have been done differently on that play to help the Vikings avoid their 31-24 playoff loss.
And his 2023 season started Sunday, roughly eight months later, with fresh talk about a play in which he aggressively threw into a tight window near the goal line in the first half, resulting in an interception that keyed a jarring 20-17 loss to Tampa Bay.
Too conservative? Too aggressive? What's the right mix?
Maybe those aren't the right questions. As offensive coordinator Wes Phillips reminded us Tuesday, there are multiple factors contributing to the nuance of a play that either fails or succeeds.
Many of the same ones that influenced Cousins' decision eight months ago were again part of the process on Sunday's fateful play, as I talked about with the help of Phillips' dissection on Wednesday's Daily Delivery podcast.
"It's not just an interception where you critique reads, routes, splits, all those types of things. Certainly when something negative happens it gets highlighted. That is a play we expect to be able to make. We didn't make it at that point," Phillips said. "Without getting too specific into reads and those types of things, who did what and blaming anyone, we know we can be better there."
The upshot seemed to be leading to what he said next, after I asked Phillips whether Cousins is comfortable staying aggressive even after a play has a negative outcome.
"I think he's played enough football to understand and digest and process kind of what actually happened and see it the right way — to see it where he knows whether it's a correction from a receiver, whether it's himself, whether it was a pressure thing where 'I couldn't follow through,'" Phillips said. "There are a lot of reasons why balls get intercepted."
