By Matthew Coller
On deadline day, the Minnesota Vikings pulled off the boldest move of the deadline by trading a third-round pick for QB Kirk Cousins. Let’s dive in…
The stars aligned for this to happen
Only in Minnesota could a bunch of events all come together at the same time to result in the most ironic thing happening.
Heading into the Vikings’ matchup with the Detroit Lions two weeks ago, there were some folks that were floating the idea of the Vikings getting another quarterback because Kyler Murray played poorly against the Indianapolis Colts. At the time, that didn’t seem realistic though because Murray had some moments vs. Miami and New Orleans and the Detroit and Buffalo defenses ranked at the bottom of the league.
It appeared there was an opportunity to get Murray rolling. Instead the former Cardinal played very poorly against the Lions in a 19-14 loss and suffered a Grade 2 hamstring injury, which normally comes along with a couple weeks on the shelf.
Still the Vikings held out hope that Carson Wentz could get them through the Bills and Packers games and then maybe keep carrying the torch if he played really well or give the ball back to Murray with plenty of season left to be played.
But on Monday night, Wentz played one of the worst games in team history, completing only eight passes and finishing with an 8.9 passer rating.
Since the Vikings’ defense played outstanding games against Detroit and Buffalo, GM Nolan Teasley was forced to make phone calls about landing another quarterback.
Before this weekend’s games, the Raiders told Adam Schefter that they weren’t going to move Cousins because they were happy with his performance and remained in the playoff race and they wanted Fernando Mendoza to continue to develop behind the scenes.
A three-interception showing by Cousins against the 49ers, however, dropped the Raiders’ playoff chances to just 16% according to The Athletic’s playoff predictor, leaving the Raiders with a situation where it made sense to move on and give the ball to Mendoza.
When they say it’s a week-to-week league, they’re not kidding. Just two weeks ago the vibe around the building was that Murray was ascending in the offense. He’d gone 40-for-48 between the second half of the Miami game and the Saints win and gotten the ball to Jefferson in his hometown.
After the bye week, everything changed fast.
Nolan Teasley had no other choice
Per Jordan Schultz, the Vikings called everybody and anybody on Monday. They reportedly contacted the Los Angeles Chargers about Justin Herbert, the Indianapolis Colts about Daniel Jones, the New York Jets about Geno Smith and the San Francisco 49ers about Mac Jones. They were either turned down or outpriced.
A Herbert trade would have been wild. It’s hard to fully understand why the Colts and Jets wouldn’t consider trading their QBs but it seems that the Colts want some degree of certainty for next year and the Jets want to be able to evaluate and develop their young players with a real QB.
The 49ers have no reason to toss the Vikings a life raft.
So they landed on Cousins.
The Vikings’ new GM was backed into a corner. With the defense playing Super Bowl-caliber football all season long and the special teams continuing to lead the NFL in EPA and Justin Jefferson going from infuriated to dejected over the last two weeks, the former Seahawks executive couldn’t sit on his hands and allow the bus to go over the edge of the cliff without trying to stop it.
The fact that Teasley only had to give up a third-round pick is a significant plus. The thought coming out of Monday’s game was that he might get taken advantage of because the entire nation saw the awful performance by Wentz. The fact that the Vikings have an extra third-round pick from the Philadelphia Eagles softens the blow.
If anyone can get Justin Jefferson going, it’s Kirk
Over his career, Cousins has targeted Jefferson 521 times with a 68.1% completion percentage, 5,348 yards (10.3 YPA) with 28 touchdowns and 13 interceptions and a 109.2 passer rating.
The biggest shock of the last two years is that nobody has been able to get the ball to one of the greatest receivers on earth. Wentz had done it last season and in Week 1 but struggled mightily against Buffalo when targeting the No. 1 receiver.
While they haven’t worked together in a while, Cousins has historically always been a QB who works the ball to his top guy. He leaned heavily on Stefon Diggs and Adam Thielen as a Viking, Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson in Washington and Brock Bowers in Las Vegas.
TJ Hockenson should also be thrilled to have Cousins back as 2023 was his best career season and he was rolling at the time Cousins got hurt.