MINNEAPOLIS – The opportunity was there in Week 17 for Kirk Cousins to exorcise the doubt that had been hovering over him all season. It was the quarterback’s chance to show he could rise to the occasion at a point that would define how the 2018 Minnesota Vikings will be remembered.
The same situation that arose two years ago when Cousins was tasked with leading the Washington Redskins in a must-win game to reach the playoffs panned out the exact same way in his first year in Minnesota: The quarterback left to recount what went wrong in a season that had so much promise but fell by the wayside.