Kirk Cousins upended the narrative with his game-winning drive vs. Saints

Kirk Cousins threw just one touchdown pass in the wild card against the Saints in New Orleans on Sunday, but it was one of the biggest throws of his career. With Cousins’ 4-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Rudolph gave Minnesota the 26-20 win, but, more importantly, it proved he can win big games.

Cousins’ throw that set up this touchdown was even prettier — he play-actioned it to Dalvin Cook before finding Adam Thielen for a 43-yard bomb:

This season 130 of Cousins pass attempts and 1,235 of his yards have come off play action, so he’s pretty good at doing that.

The touchdown capped off a nine-play, 75-yard scoring drive that reversed the narrative that Cousins crumbles when the pressure is on. Take a look at some of his records heading into this road game:

He also didn’t have a great record in national spotlight games.

• He’s 0-9 on Monday Night Football
• 2-5 on Thursday Night Football
• 7-15 in primetime games

With the victory over the Saints — he finished with 242 yards, a touchdown, and a passer rating of 97 — he improved his record to 1-1 in the playoffs. Next, Cousins and the Vikings will face the 49ers in San Francisco on Jan. 11.

It’s taken a while for Cousins to earn his first playoff win. He started his NFL career in 2012 with Washington. After signing with the Vikings in 2018, he went just 8-7-1 as the starter last season and missed out on the playoffs. This is the biggest moment of his career, so naturally he gave us another “YOU LIKE THAT?!”

Beautiful.