5 burning questions the Vikings must answer in 2019

1. Can QB Kirk Cousins improve his ball security?

Taking care of the pigskin is imperative if a team is going to succeed. Giving your opponents fewer opportunities to score certainly increases your chances of success. For a quarterback, protecting the football despite the ensuing chaos around you is extremely important.

Some signal-callers are better at hanging onto the ball than others when dealing with a heavy pass rush. Such is not necessarily the case when it comes to Kirk Cousins, who over the past four seasons and with two different teams has put the ball on the ground far too many times.

The 2012 fourth-round pick of the Washington Redskins became a 16-starter for Jay Gruden’s team in 2015. He’s not missed a game since and comes off his first season in the Twin Cities. In those 64 contests, he’s thrown for 111 scores and 46 interceptions. But he’s also fumble a disappointing 40 times and lost 18 of those miscues. This past season with the Vikings, Cousins hit on an impressive 70.1 percent of his throws and three times as many TD passes (30) as interceptions (10). But he fumbles nine times and lost the ball seven times. All told, he committed 17 of the team’s 20 turnovers in 2018.

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If the previously-mentioned offensive line of the Vikings doesn’t show significant improvement this year, it could be another rough year for the seven-year quarterback. But getting hit doesn’t mean you have to cough up the ball and Cousins must do a better job of protecting the prize.