ALEX SMITH and moving forward.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by DYoungJelly

I'm interested in the disparity between Kirk's rank against the blitz (3rd) and his rank against pressure (20th).

Could he plan and account for a blitz versus have to react to and go off schedule to deal with pressure?

Any theories?

It’s important to remember that not every blitz succeeds in generating pressure, and not every QB pressure came from the blitz.

To me, Cousins’s success against the blitz says he’s adept at very quickly diagnosing a defense and very quickly getting rid of the ball. He does a good job of deploying hot routes and knows where to go with it if he sees blitz. Basically he’s a smart QB.

But the poor stats against pressure mean that once a rusher breaks free of his block and is bearing down on Cousins, his athleticism limits him to pedestrian performance. He can’t escape like Wilson or Wentz, he can’t shrug big dudes off like Roethlisberger, and he can’t make other worldly throws on the run like Rodgers.

We’ve seen that tons of times. To me it points to a QB who will do well during the regular season, but against the better pass rushes that come in the playoffs, the team around him will need to play perfectly to get him over the hump.

And thus the reason he chose Minnesota. He himself knows his limitations.