Cousins Comments on Diggs Trade, How 2020 Vikings Offense Will Look Under Kubiak

[Viktor]

One of those, Cousins revealed, is his own willingness to take off and scramble more if the situation calls for it. The quarterback quipped that he found out Vikings Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton — one of the best scramblers ever — suggested using his athleticism more often, and Cousins agreed with it.


"I think there's a variety of areas we can improve; even some of the areas where we were really good on offense, I think we can take another step," Cousins said. "I think it helps to have had a year with Coach Kubiak in that system. … There was a bit of figuring it out last year and feeling one another out during the offseason of, 'What is this going to look like?' and 'How do we do things?' I'd like to think that, in a way, this is Year 2, and as a result, we can take a step forward, just because we're more familiar with the goals and the plan and what it should look like.


"I think personally, you look at the San Francisco game, and you see there's a tremendous amount of room for improvement. And personally, in my own game, I felt like we got a lot of man coverage in that game, and I really needed to take off and run," Cousins said. "I do need to run more. I have an athleticism there that, I don't know that I tap into enough. And so, that's maybe an area that I'll try to work on the best I can. The challenge is, with a red jersey on in practice, it's really hard to know when you were tackled, when you were sacked and when you're still scrambling. But I'd like to add that to my game and try to work on that the best I can, as hard as it is."


It still remains to be seen when the Vikings can get together in-person as a team due to the pandemic and what 2020 will have in store for Cousins as he enters his third season in Purple.


The quarterback will be around for the foreseeable future. He called his recent contract extension a "win-win" for both the organization and himself.


But whenever the Vikings offense hits the field again together, they will do so without Diggs, whom Cousins texted shortly after the trade was announced.


And it will be upon Cousins and others to step up and help the Vikings offense remain in the upper echelon across the league.


"Yeah, I think my text message to him said something along the lines of, 'You're as good as any receiver I've ever played with.' That includes some names like Adam Thielen, DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garçon … he's elite," Cousins said. "There were a lot of games where his talent makes an enormous difference. I just wanted to let him know that, and I'm sure the Bills will be thrilled to have that.


"He's a special player, and we now have to find a way to move forward and replace that, if you will, with a variety of players," Cousins also added. "But I think our challenge going forward is creating that talented option outside of Adam on the outside, and I think there'll be a variety of ways to do that, and I'm excited to get started on that challenge."