When Kwesi Adofo-Mensah stepped up to the podium at the NFL Scouting Combine, he had several questions to answer about the Minnesota Vikings’ future. Adofo-Mensah had to explain how the Vikings, a team in salary cap hell, were going to shed salary while building off the team’s first 13-win season since 2017.
But the biggest question on everybody’s mind was what they were going to do with Kirk Cousins.
Cousins is entering the final year of his contract, and NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported earlier in the week that he would not anticipate the type of one-year, fully-guaranteed extensions that the 35-year-old has signed in the past.
Some would take this as a sign the Vikings are ready to move on. But Adofo-Mensah gave his own review about his starting quarterback.
“A necessary condition is having a starter-level quarterback,” Adofo-Mensah began. “One thing I know, [Cousins] is good enough. It meets that first threshold, and that’s a question that a lot of people can’t answer with a ‘yes.’ So we have got to make sure that we treat that in the proper importance it is.”
At first, Adofo-Mensah makes it sound like Cousins is the NFL’s version of microwaving Chinese leftovers at midnight. Sure, it may not be good as a fresh bowl of General Tsao’s Chicken, but it beats not having Chinese food at all.
But Kevin O’Connell’s comments later in the week made it sound like something bigger was in the works.
“Player development at every position is very, very important,” O’Connell said. “But the quarterback position, both the understanding of where that player truly is when you get a chance to start coaching him, and then what your plan is for that player moving forward.”
With Cousins in his mid-30s, the Vikings need to figure out a succession plan at quarterback. But this regime doesn’t seem to be looking for a quarterback, they’re looking for the quarterback.
Looking back on Vikings history, they have stumbled trying to find a franchise quarterback. In the early 1990s, Dennis Green used a revolving quarterback carousel that featured Jim McMahon, Warren Moon, Randall Cunningham, and Jeff George. But it was part of the process to find a long-term solution.
Part of the reason for this is that the Vikings were still recovering from the Herschel Walker trade. The other was that the Vikings weren’t in a position to draft a quarterback, picking in the mid-20s for a majority of Green’s tenure. In the meantime, quarterbacks such as Heath Shuler, Trent Dilfer, and Jim Druckenmiller went off the board until Green finally saw a quarterback he liked in the 1999 draft, Daunte Culpepper.
There was a mixed reaction to that pick. The Vikings had several needs coming off a 15-win season in 1998. But after a year on the bench, Culpepper took the Vikings into the next decade before suffering a multi-ligament knee injury in 2005.
Culpepper’s injury took the Vikings into another dark period where they took a quarterback because they needed one. Brad Childress urged Minnesota to draft Tarvaris Jackson upon his arrival in the 2006, and then recruited Brett Favre as an act of desperation to lead the Vikings to the NFC Championship Game.
When Favre finally declined, the Vikings were in another spot of desperation to draft a quarterback in 2011. The process was complicated by the lack of free agency and offseason movement due to the NFL’s player lockout. But Minnesota watched as Cam Newton, Jake Locker, and Blaine Gabbert flew off the board.
With Robert Quinn, Cameron Jordan and Cameron Heyward still on the board, the Vikings decided to get their guy – Christian Ponder.
Spielman hand-picked Ponder to be his quarterback after watching a game against North Carolina and a couple of practices at the Senior Bowl. But it’s hard not to wonder what would have happened if he looked ahead, saw Andrew Luck on the horizon and just rode the corpse of Donovan McNabb to the finish line to select Luck, Russell Wilson, or Cousins (!!!) in the 2012 draft.
The Vikings tried to identify another quarterback when trading up for Teddy Bridgewater in 2014. But even if he didn’t injure his knee at Winter Park, it’s fair to wonder if he would have ever become the long-term franchise quarterback.
That ultimately led the Vikings to Cousins. He isn’t on the same tier as Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow, but is good enough to hold down the position until they can find that player.
Even if the Vikings agree to a long-term extension, they seem to be willing to wait until their version of Mr. Right comes along. Spielman tried his hand at it, scouting Carson Strong and praising Malik Willis’ response to an “overrated” chant one year ago. However, neither seem like a good option now.
Minnesota’s approach to their franchise quarterback seems much more scientific. They could have done what the Pittsburgh Steelers did by drafting Kenny Pickett in the first round last year, but they knew he wasn’t the guy. Even as other quarterbacks such as Willis, Desmond Ridder, and Sam Howell were there in the latest rounds of the draft, the Vikings didn’t pull the trigger.
This year brings a different scenario. KSTP’s Darren Wolfson reported that the Vikings met with Florida man…I mean…quarterback Anthony Richardson at the scouting combine and O’Connell is keen on Kentucky quarterback Will Levis despite his Orlovskian food takes. But even if they do like mayo in their coffee, it seems like O’Connell is bringing a thorough evaluation process to find their guy.
“The only way they’re going to improve is through hard work and understanding that accountability factor to what their goals are,” O’Connell explained. “A lot of guys come in here and say they want to start in the NFL on Day 1. They want to…start every game, lead their team to the playoffs, win a Super Bowl, [but] a lot goes into what it takes to do that.”
Adofo-Mensah also stated that there are a lot of other factors to consider what type of quarterback the Vikings could be looking for.
“How do you build the rest of the team?” Adofo-Mensah asked. “[How do you] round him to make sure that you can win that way? Different quarterbacks require different things around them but we know for sure that [Cousins] meets that threshold. How long does he meet that threshold? Those are things we got to answer. Is there a chance to add somebody maybe with different skill sets? Those are all questions we got to answer. So there’s not one right way.”
If Levis or Richardson is the type of quarterback that answers those questions, the Vikings will likely do their best to move up. If not, they could ride Cousins another year and try their luck to acquire their guy in 2024.
For what it’s worth, SI’s Albert Breer said on The Rich Eisen Show that many teams believe that the best quarterback prospects are still in college. If O’Connell’s staff likes a prospect like USC’s Caleb Williams or North Carolina’s Drake Maye, they may be better served to wait – especially with an aging team that will face a harder schedule in 2023.
Whatever the plan, timing is everything for the Vikings. If they want a quarterback in this draft, they seem willing to find a way to get them. If not, they have the luxury of having Cousins to buy more time. It’s a path that could eventually lead to another extension for Cousins, but the Vikings are doing their diligence to find Mr. Right.
