With a little more than two hours to go before the NFL Trade Deadline, the Minnesota Vikings are looking for a quarterback. While this is not really news. . .particularly if you watched whatever the hell that was we subjected ourselves to on Monday night. . .we have gotten some news on who their primary target appears to be.
According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Vikings have reportedly identified Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Kirk Cousins as a primary target for a trade acquisition.
Cousins, of course, spent six seasons with the Vikings from 2018 to 2023, and it was his Achilles injury in 2023 that basically launched the quarterback odyssey that the Vikings currently find themselves on. After Cousins’ injury, the Vikings chose not to re-sign him before the 2024 season, and he moved on to the Atlanta Falcons. That led to the team bringing Sam Darnold in as a free agent and drafting J.J. McCarthy in the 2024 NFL Draft, which led to Darnold taking the job after McCarthy’s preseason injury and. . .well, I’m not going to rehash the entire timeline here, but it’s been mostly bad since then.
The Raiders are currently in third place in the AFC West with a 4-5 record, and Cousins has thrown 20 touchdown passes so far this season. Of all the potentially available options, Cousins is the one who likely gives the Vikings the best chance of a boost this season because of his familiarity with the Vikings’ system and the fact that. . .well, he can actually complete a forward pass, which would be a big step forward from where the offense currently is now.
The question remains whether or not the Raiders want to move Cousins or not. At 4-5, they are still in contention in the AFC, but they do have this year’s #1 overall pick, Fernando Mendoza, waiting in the wings. They obviously want to build around him for the future, and the price they could likely extract from the Vikings for Cousins’ services could be a boost towards helping them to do that.
What do you think, folks? Is it time for a Kirk Cousins reunion in Minnesota? Talk about it in the comments, and we’ll be keeping our eyes on the wire to see if anything happens between now and 3:00 PM Central Time.
