49ers: 3 Vikings players Niners must stop in NFC divisional round

No. 1: Contain quarterback Kirk Cousins.

The narrative around Kirk Cousins in primetime games is pretty negative. Numbers don’t lie, and he hasn’t played well when the lights are on him.

He hasn’t won a game on Monday Night Football, and he only has one playoff win in his career. But that lone victory was Sunday evening in New Orleans.

Cousins went 19-of-31 for 242 and a touchdown in his team’s Wild Card victory.

It’s not like Cousins is a terrible quarterback. He’s a Pro Bowler, threw for over 4,000 yards the previous four seasons, and has 155 touchdowns compared to 71 interceptions. So he’s certainly capable of doing great things.

After watching Cousins on Sunday afternoon, a couple of things were made clear: He’s very efficient with the deep ball and isn’t afraid to take a hit to make a throw.

Here’s an example from the weekend where he tossed a 34-yard pass to Thielen:

It was a great route and fake by Thielen to confuse Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore. It was an even better throw by Cousins, who was under pressure by two Saints defensive linemen.

The Niners’ pass rush, which is already elite, will need to be even quicker against Cousins. They’ll need to make sure they get their hands on Cousins throwing arm rather than just trying to tackle him.

The Vikings receivers are also extremely skilled, as you saw in the video above, which allows Cousins to basically throw it up and trust his guys to make the catch. It’ll be up to the 49ers’ secondary to stay with the receivers.

They can’t afford to let a receiver run past them or have much open space. The 49ers’ pass rush must limit the amount of time Cousins has on the field if they want to give their offense a chance to win.