It’s unfortunate that Kirk Cousins’ final throw in the 2022 season was a fourth-and-eight checkdown to T.J. Hockenson. Unfortunate because it sealed the New York Giants’ 31-24 win over the Minnesota Vikings. But also unfortunate because Cousins took a step forward last year. He played better situational football and took more risks, leaning on Justin Jefferson’s superstar talent. Perhaps most importantly, Kevin O’Connell believes in Cousins, and Cousins had his best season at age 34 – no small feat.
But we can’t unsee what we’ve seen. We saw the Vikings go 8-7-1 the year after Minnesota signed Cousins to a fully guaranteed $84 million contract. We’ve seen his production drop in primetime games, and we’ve seen him line up under a guard in San Francisco. Ultimately, we’ve seen enough that almost everyone has made up their mind about him. To some, he provides stability the Vikings have rarely had at quarterback. To others, he prevents them from ever being a championship-caliber team. Ultimately, it’s hard not to fixate on his throw to Hockenson at the end of the season.
“Just a shell read there, saw single-high, tried to work Justin, didn’t feel good about putting it up to Justin,” he said after the playoff loss.
When I went to progress, I just felt like I was about to get sacked, and I felt like I’ve got to put the ball in play, and I can’t go down with sack, so I thought I’d kick it out to T.J. I had thrown short of the sticks on a few occasions in the game and even going back a few weeks and just felt like just throwing it short of the sticks isn’t the end of the world. It’s just obviously tight coverage, so didn’t have the chance to pull away. But I just felt like I was going to go down and take a sack if I didn’t put it out.
Cousins is often thoughtful and thorough with his explanations after games. He’s a perfectionist who meticulously prepares for each game. But in this case, he was technically right and functionally wrong. Kurt Warner broke down the play after the game and mostly defended Cousins. However, K.J. Osborn popped open late, and Cousins may have been able to let him make a play on the ball if he had bought a little more time. Also, throwing an interception on a risky pass to Jefferson is essentially the same as a turnover on downs at that point in the game. Perhaps Hockenson breaks free and gets a first down, but that’s an unlikely result.
One play doesn’t define Cousins’ season, but it illustrates a core component of the fanbase’s divide on him. Some people feel the Vikings will succeed if he continues to make the right play. They just need the right talent and coaching around him. Others see a player reluctant to take a risk and who cannot drive winning because championship quarterbacks often make something out of nothing. The receiver is open because the quarterback bought time and threw him open.
Regardless of where you stand on Cousins, the Vikings must think about life without him. He will be 35 next season. Quarterbacks have more longevity than most positions in the NFL because of the rules that protect them, but most decline as they get into their 30s. Even if Cousins has a Rich Gannon-like renaissance under O’Connell, Father Time will eventually come for him.
Fortunately, that allows Minnesota to take multiple chances on a developmental signal-caller to work behind him. However, the Vikings only have five picks in next year’s draft, assuming they get a compensatory pick for losing Tyler Conklin. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah probably assured Brian Flores he’d use significant draft capital on defense when he recruited him. Therefore, it may be hard to justify taking a flyer on a rookie quarterback who may never take a snap in purple.
Still, teams probably should take a quarterback every year until they have a franchise player like Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, or Josh Allen. Mahomes occupied 17% of the cap last year; no team had won the Super Bowl with a quarterback earning more than 12.5% of the cap before the Kansas City Chiefs won this year. Cousins earns 16.09% of Minnesota’s cap, according to Spotrac. He’s not Mahomes, and even if they cut or restructure other veterans, they need adequate cap space to extend Jefferson and Hockenson and also onboard the next draft class and free agents. Therefore, they will have to extend him to free up cap space.
They could cut or trade Cousins, but the Vikings need a quarterback who’s at least as good as him so long as Jefferson is in town. Otherwise, they’re just wasting Jefferson’s potential. The upside is that Cousins’ presence gives Minnesota time to develop any quarterback they draft. There is nothing more valuable in football than a rookie quarterback contract. But that deal provides little value if the quarterback isn’t any good. Therefore, the Vikings would be wise to extend Cousins and develop quarterbacks under him until they have someone they are comfortable starting in regular season games.
Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell chose to undergo a “competitive rebuild” after the Vikings hired them last season. Therefore, they will not get a top-10 pick unless they trade up for one. However, they can use late-firsts or middle-round picks to draft project quarterbacks, knowing they have a reliable incumbent. They’re likely to end up with a few quarterbacks like Kellen Mond, the third-rounder they inherited and moved on from after the preseason. However, they could also find someone who succeeds Cousins as he enters his late 30s. It’s a risky gambit, but so is everything in football.
