NFL Panic Index 2018: Was Kirk Cousins an $84 million Minnesota Mistake?

The Minnesota Vikings were just one game from going to the Super Bowl last year — and that was with Case Keenum starting 16 games, including the playoffs. So surely an upgrade at the quarterback position was all they needed to put them over the top, right? Enter the biggest free agent prize of the 2018 offseason, dad joke personified Kirk Cousins.

Cousins knew that in a quarterback-obsessed NFL, and in a free agent class that was light on top-tier passers, he had a ton of leverage. So he shrewdly negotiated a three-year, fully guaranteed $84 million deal with the one team that 1) needed a quarterback and 2) could contend for a championship right away.

The results have been mixed. The Vikings are just 4-3-1, trailing the Bears, somehow, in a tight and kinda weird NFC North race. They’ve already matched their loss total from a season ago and they probably should be 4-4 if not for the refs’ early-season vendetta against Clay Matthews.

Cousins has been perfectly Cousins-esque in all the good ways. He’s completing a high percentage of his throws (70.7) for a solid touchdown-to-interception ration (16:4). He’s also been Cousins-esque in all the bad ways, with his passes getting batted down frequently and fumbling way more than a guy who got a historic contract should.

He hasn’t been transcendent. He’s not really putting the Vikings on his back right now — and he also lost the Bills. Never forget that.

Panic index: Where do we even start? Besides, with rolling our eyes?

Yeah, it’s disappointing that the Vikings would miss the playoffs if the season ended today. But the season doesn’t end today. Not only are they far from out of it, but Cousins is about the last of their issues right now, which include:

The Vikings can still overcome all of that. They’ve lost three games, including to the Rams and Saints, the top two teams in the NFC (the Bills loss remains inexplicable). Cousins was the best option for them in free agency, especially for a team that hasn’t had much quarterback stability since Fran Tarkenton. They made the right decision.

The Vikings are fine. Cousins is fine. This debate is dumb.

The Browns made headlines on Monday when they fired head coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley. Jackson getting fired wasn’t a big surprise to anyone, he was 3-36-1 as the Browns head coach, but letting go of the offensive coordinator was a bit unexpected — especially with a No. 1 overall pick still adjusting to the NFL game.

Baker Mayfield will now go through the rest of the season without two of the figureheads on the coaching staff when he got there. Jackson and Haley failed to get the most out of the offense, but this is still a big change for a rookie quarterback still leaning the ropes.

Running backs coach Freddie Kitchens has been promoted to offensive coordinator, a position he’s never held at any level. It’ll be interesting to see if Kitchens can get the Browns’ offense back on track, but given the offensive performance up to this date it’s hard to be too confident.

Panic index: For Browns fans, the hope is Mayfield can make it through the rest of the season without getting injured and without his confidence being shaken. There might not be too much to panic about because the Browns’ season was headed in the wrong direction either way, but keeping tabs on the development of Baker Mayfield will be huge for the rest of the year.

Three minutes and 10 seconds into the first quarter of the first game of the Patriots’ 2018 season, Rob Gronkowski caught his first touchdown of the year. Since then, nada.

He missed one game due to a back injury, but in the last six games that he has played Gronk’s finished with zero touchdowns and less than 100 receiving yards. Before this year, he’d never even had a five-game stretch in his career without finding the end zone.

There are many things to point to, including the way teams are able to lock on the tight end without many other receiving threats in the New England offense. But Gronk’s lingering back injuries look like they’re catching up with him.

The 6’6 tight end underwent back surgery in college, another in 2013, and a third in 2016. Eventually that kind of damage is going to pile up.

Panic index: Gronkowski considered retirement earlier in 2018, so there’s real reason to worry we may not have him around in the NFL much longer. He’s not playing like the destroyer of worlds who plowed through defenses for 65 touchdowns in his first six seasons and he probably never will again.

But even during this down year, he’s still averaging 64 yards per game. That’s fifth most among tight ends in the NFL. Even the discount version of Gronk is tough to stop completely.

The 2017 Ravens were borderline unwatchable. A receiving corps led by Mike Wallace, Ben Watson, and Jeremy Maclin (combined age: 97) helped doom Flacco to his worst season as a pro — and 2017’s worst season by any regular starting quarterback. The veteran threw for an anemic 5.7 yards per pass while piloting the league’s least efficient passing offense.

Baltimore general manager Ozzie Newsome focused on revamping that receiving corps and giving Flacco room to thrive like the Rams had done to level up Jared Goff the year before. Only they did it on a budget; instead of trading for, signing, or drafting players like Brandin Cooks, Cooper Kupp, and Robert Woods, the Ravens picked through a free agent pile of discarded veteran wideouts and pulled out Michael Crabtree, John Brown, and Willie Snead.

And it worked! — at least for a little while. Crabtree was a useful, if inconsistent, veteran presence. Snead was a shifty slot wideout. Brown showed off the flashes of talent that made him a 1,000-yard receiver back in 2015. They combined for more than 1,300 receiving yards over the first seven games of the year.

But that trio always appeared to be working on borrowed time, and the Ravens’ lack of receiving talent was on full display against a Panthers secondary that bullied them all afternoon. Crabtree, Snead, and Brown combined for 11 catches on 23 targets and just 113 receiving yards. Flacco finished his afternoon with 192 passing yards on 39 attempts — a sub-Osweilerian 4.9 yards per throw — and a pair of interceptions in a blowout loss that knocked his team back to .500 on the season.

Panic index: Lamar Jackson got his first full drive of the season in garbage time, leading Baltimore 64 yards in a seven-play touchdown drive that made the final score 36-21. If Flacco really does settle back into his 2017 ways, at least Ravens’ fans will know whose name to chant in Weeks 16 and 17.

Detroit and Denver came into ‘18 with decent, if not exactly lofty, expectations. The Broncos gave Case Keenum $36 million in an attempt to see if his Minnesota magic could translate in the Rocky Mountains and give the club an offense that, at the very least, would approach the level of its defense. The Lions got a new head coach, beat the crap out of the Patriots, and looked very much alive in a wide-open NFC North despite a rocky start.

But both teams were sellers at the trade deadline, shipping off Pro Bowl wide receivers to teams with much more feasible postseason hopes. Denver traded Demaryius Thomas to the Texans in exchange for a fourth-round pick and a swap of seventh-rounders. Detroit shipped Golden Tate to Philadelphia, gleaning a third-round selection in return.

These moves weren’t quite white flags, but they certainly don’t inspire confidence in each team’s 2018. Moving Thomas, who was on pace for his worst statistical season since 2011, makes some sense. He’s due $14 million next fall, though the Texans can cut him before the final year of his contract without any dead cap penalty going forward. Broncos general manager John Elway doesn’t think the move will have any impact on his team’s chances this fall since there are plenty of other players on the roster Keenum can overthrow anyway.

The case in Detroit is a bit more curious. The Lions were buyers less than a week ago, adding defensive tackle Damon Harrison in exchange for a fifth-round pick. But Harrison’s under contract through 2020, while Tate’s deal expires once the 2018 season does. You can spin the “Snacks” deal as a move for the present and for the future — though it’s infinitely more amusing to think one awful loss against the Seahawks, sealed by a fake punt out of Seattle’s own end zone, was enough to make general manager Bob Quinn say “burn it down.”

Panic index: The Broncos weren’t going to the playoffs anyway, because the AFC West is stacked, and probably would have cut Thomas next offseason anyway. The Lions, on the other hand, had a very real shot to take down the weakest NFC North in recent memory. Instead, they traded away their top wide receiver for a third-round pick.

While he could have left in free agency, his departure would have gleaned a likely third- or fourth-round compensatory pick from the league’s head offices. Instead, that compensation will go to the Eagles should he choose to leave after the season.

So Detroit just traded its top wide receiver — a man who got nearly 27 percent of all Matthew Stafford’s targets — for what may amount to a difference of 10-15 draft slots in the third round. As far as risk goes, this one’s way worse for the Lions than it is for the Broncos.