I don’t know about you folks, but to me, this offseason can’t get over with quickly enough. The weight of these quarterback questions feels like an anchor chain draped across my sports-fan shoulders. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. All I can do is impotently argue with myself over who should be the Minnesota Vikings’ next quarterback.
I wrote last week about the quarterback situation and how Minnesota can look at examples like Jordan Love and C.J. Stroud as two very different approaches to preparing a young passer. There’s more than one way to skin a cat in this situation. Graphic references to feline taxidermy aside, Kwesi Adofo-Mensah should explore all of them. But as we’ve seen in Adofo-Mensah’s brief tenure as GM, this team is not interested in bottoming out in the short term under the guise of competing later. I’m willing to bet that also applies to their 2024 quarterback situation.
Even if they identify a young quarterback in this year’s draft and make the necessary moves to obtain him, Adofo-Mensah will not want to draft a quarterback without a contingency plan. Whether it’s to protect a player who’s struggling like Bryce Young did this past year or be prepared in the case of injury like with Anthony Richardson, Adofo-Mensah is likely going to want any rookie QB to have to earn their starting job and have a solid veteran presence behind him.
Nobody loves the bridge quarterback experience, but it may be prudent here, especially if they move on from Kirk Cousins. So, while it may not be the sexiest discussion ever, it’d behoove us to be acquainted with the 2024 market for free-agent bridge quarterbacks.
Let’s start with the fanciest, high-end bridges first.
One could argue bringing back Kirk Cousins could act as your bridge quarterback. However, labeling him as such may greatly undersell Cousins’ ability. Even with concerns over his Achilles tear, Cousins is less of a bridge than a mid-tier starter, and he will probably seek a contract befitting that status. And the Vikings have telegraphed that they may be moving on from Cousins after declining a team-friendly extension offer from the Cousins camp last offseason. Injury concerns, price tag, and simply looking for something new may be all it takes for the organization to turn the page.
Should he reach free agency, Cousins will likely be viewed as the top quarterback on the market, and rightfully so. It just may not be what Minnesota is looking for at the moment.
Baker Mayfield is the other pseudo-starter worth discussing. The former first-overall pick and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback is slated to be a free agent, but he’s arguably coming off his hottest year as a pro in Tampa. He showed flashes of the talent that got him drafted No. 1 overall, even if those were coupled with dumb and sloppy decisions. He’d be another great option if he hits the market for a team looking to remain competitive. But I could also see the Bucs franchise-tagging him. That way, they can keep Mayfield in the building while determining if 2023 was a trend or an anomaly.
Gardner Minshew is another high-end backup worthy of bridging the gap. Minshew was far from a world-beater last season, but he allowed Indy to stay competitive after Anthony Richardson went down. Minshew is about as premier of a backup as you can imagine. He could easily win the job as a Week 1 starter against a rookie. The Indianapolis Colts must decide whether it can trust Richardson’s health and ability enough to let Minshew out of the building. Still, he’d be arguably the most competitive true backup in the league. If Minnesota needed to sit a rookie for most of the year, Minshew proved competent enough to hold down the job for most of the season.
Then, there is another tier of players below Minshew. There are still plenty of guys who could either start the season or come in for a rookie in a pinch, but you’d probably prefer not to count on them for the bulk of the season. For me, Jameis Winston, Jacoby Brissett, and Ryan Tannehill are the guys that fit this benchmark.
In Winston, Brissett, and Tannehill, we’ve seen guys who’ve played starter-quality football for stretches of their careers. However, their concerns with age, health, and caliber of play make me wary of the Vikings putting them under center. Of the three, Winston is far and away the most fun, even if he’s also the most volatile. At the very least, there’ll be no shortage of deep-ball opportunities for Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison to haul in (while they likely play catchup from the deficit Winston’s turnovers got them into).
Things get dicey beyond that. We start to look at names like Mason Rudolph, Joe Flacco, or Sam Darnold. Players who are marginal improvements over what the Vikings already have on the roster in second-year player Jaren Hall and veteran Nick Mullens. Rudolph and Flacco had moments this season where they found success as game managers, but they both also proved down the stretch why they’re entrenched backups. If we start realistically entertaining the idea of starting a player like Mason Rudolph, we can drop all pretense of “competitive” from Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s competitive rebuild. At that point, just give me Jaren Hall or a bright-eyed rookie.
The most difficult challenge for Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell is that they may have to make this decision before draft night and that variability could leave them at the dance without a partner. It makes sense to mitigate your need going into the draft so that you do not have to draft from a position of desperation. Therefore, identifying a bridge quarterback is crucial to this offseason plan.
And then, in April, we’ll see how this regime handles its search for a quarterback of the future. I’m eager to see who it’ll be and how they’ll secure his services. But I suppose we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.
