These Vikings Trade Rumors Are Getting OUT OF HAND...

These Vikings trade rumors are getting out of hand as multiple reports suggest an insane reunion that would certainly please fans and give this offense the juice it desperately needs. And we take a look at some possibly fraudulent Kevin O'Connell stats that bring up an alarming conversation. We're gonna break it down all that in this episode of Vikings Digest. But first, we are just over 200 subscribers away from hitting our goal of 6,000 subs before we kick off against the Bills on Monday night. So if you're a part of the 88% of viewers who are not yet subscribed, you want to stay up to date on all things Vikings. Make sure to hit that subscribe button and the bell icon so you don't miss any of the episodes when they drop. This is going to be a very big game on Monday night against the Bills, and a game in which the Vikings are only at a 38% chance of winning on call sheet. And on call sheet, you're trading directly against other users, not the house like traditional sportsbooks. You're buying yes or no contracts on the outcome of events across sports, politics, or even the weather. For example, if you were to make a $25 trade on the Vikings to win on Monday night, that would give you a payout of $63.05. Or if you wanted to go a step further and place a $25 trade on the Vikings to win the NFC North back, even though they are dropping a lot lower in the percentage right now, that would give you a payout of $91.38. So if you are interested in trying out Kalsha, use the link in the description or pin comment and use code DIGESTNFL to get $55 added to your account instantly when you trade your first $25. With that, let's hop right into the first topic, which is the Kirk Cousins reunion. As this has been a very much discussed topic in the media recently, talking about what the Vikings could do with their current quarterback dilemma, dealing with Kyler Murray's inconsistencies, even though it hasn't, I mean. It's looked bad, but it's also looked good at times. And on the stat sheet, it's not fully reflecting how it's looked on the field. So you got to kind of take those numbers with a little bit of a grain of salt. Anybody who's been watching Vikings games will see that what Kyler Murray is doing on the offense right now is not necessarily great. It's not atrocious. Yes. But it's a little bit, it's kind of not great. But at the end of the day, Minnesota could be looking for a new quarterback. And that brings it full circle around to Kirk Cousins. As it says, could the Vikings explore a trade to reacquire Kirk Cousins from the Raiders or Jones from the Colts? Or given that Murray had hamstring tightness late in Sunday's game, as he still has been a bit up in the air as far as his game status, might they ponder a pivot to back up quarterback Carson Wentz? My sense is that nothing has been ruled out and this is coming from Mike Silver speaking in the New York Times saying how the Vikings might need to make a change at quarterback. Whether that's going with Carson Wentz. I mean, if Carson Wentz gets the start because Kyler can't go and they don't make a trade this week and he absolutely balls out, maybe this is just a resurgence of bringing it full circle from when Nick Foles took over from Carson Wentz all those years ago in 2017. And now Carson Wentz has a chance to be the Nick Foles character in this story. I think it would kind of be cool to bring things full circle, especially because it's for the Minnesota Vikings, where, I mean, you look at what happened for the Eagles that year. They ended up winning the Super Bowl, beating us en route to doing so. Maybe it happens the same way for us, even though it's not going to be beating the Eagles because they aren't going to be making the playoffs this year, but we could go on that kind of similar type of run if Carson Wentz comes in here and just absolutely kills it. But as far as Kirk Cousins is concerned, that would be a very intriguing option, as Mike Silver was not the only one who pointed out, and you guys know I hate Colin Cowherd. I hate him with a passion. He never has anything nice to say about the Vikings, but in this scenario, It wasn't necessarily defamatory or anything praiseworthy for the Vikings, but he did point out that Kirk Cousins should be a possibility, saying, go get Kirk Cousins. There's too much talent here. You're looking at an 0-4 stretch with Kyler Murray over these next couple of games, who I thought was going to be better than Sam Darnold. I'm not saying he's great, but you'll win games with him, and they are. Am I off my rocker? Go give up a second and a third-round pick and go get Kirk Cousins. And while the haul to kind of give up for getting Kirk Cousins, I think is a little bit egregious, but with the value he could bring to this offense, as far as just slinging that thing downfield, when you look at what he's doing with the Raiders right now, he's absolutely killing it. 329 pass snaps, 76.5 PFF passing grade, 21, 2,124 passing yards, 19 touchdowns, only five interceptions, 10 big time throws, and only seven turnover worthy plays, which is a far cry from what he was doing in Minnesota. Where it kind of, he cleaned it up over the last couple of years in Minnesota, but when he first got there, he was turning that ball over left, right, and center, and it was looking very ugly where he was playing hero ball. Then he shaped that up a little bit, and we saw a lot less turnovers from Kirk. My biggest thing and why the Vikings moved on from him was because of the mobility. That was a big factor where they wanted a quarterback. That they could use in a mobile league where the pocket passer quarterback is basically dying off. Look at how many pure pocket passers are left in the league. You got Matt Stafford. You got Aaron Rodgers. You got Kirk Cousins. You got Jared Goff. And that's basically it. I mean, Sam Darnold would be one of those guys as well. I probably would throw him in that category too. But there's maybe only a couple other guys you can say are still pure pocket passers. Kirk Cousins is one of those guys. And while that does limit Minnesota as far as their play calling ability and going with the bootlegs, and the thing that I hated most about Kirk Cousins is that when he would take, he would take a lot of sacks, but at least he would take them in a somewhat smart way where he wasn't fumbling the ball a ton of times. He would just kind of turtle and just drop on the ball. The only problem was he did it a little bit too much. But with Minnesota's offensive line, except for Will Fries, playing a lot better this year, or at least it looked like it at the start of the year, and now it's kind of fallen off the rails a little bit. I think if you bring Cousins in here, he could potentially have a lot less sacks than he was giving up when he was in Minnesota, and this offense could open up a lot more. And someone who would be very happy about that is, of course, Justin Jefferson. As you look at the numbers that he had with Kirk Cousins, they were absolutely astronomical at points, whereas average yards per game with each quarterback he's played with. Cousins is the second highest at 114 yards per game. Nick Mullins is up there at 131. It was only with three games though, but he was just slinging that thing. Then you got Jaren Hall, Josh Dobbs, Sam Darnold brought it up to 90. Carson Wentz brought it up to 95. So I don't necessarily hate the idea of throwing Carson Wentz in here at this point, especially if it would take a lot to give up for Kirk Cousins. But I think it's going to be a very interesting thing to see what Minnesota decides to do. Probably Kirk Cousins on top of the mobility. is he would be very, very expensive. So if they are looking for a one-year rental option, that would be a very expensive investment to make. And as well as Adam Schefter chiming in on those things, saying that I don't know if you're going to get a quarterback right now that's going to step in and be a dramatic upgrade over Kyler Murray, as well as saying as it pertains to Kirk Cousins as well in Vegas, saying they're relevant, they're winning. He's an example for Mendoza. What are you going to get back for Kirk Cousins? I'm making this up again. I haven't asked them, a fourth round pick? Is that worth it to destroy the morale of your team and take away a mentor for Fernando? I don't think so, and I have to agree with Shefty on this one where I do not necessarily think that the Raiders are going to compromise what they are doing for Fernando Mendoza's development, and I absolutely applaud them for it. I think that's the absolutely smart move to do and have him learning for a year. They're learning from all the mistakes that Minnesota made. with J.J. McCarthy. Now J.J. McCarthy is balling out with the New York Giants. Maybe he ends up coming back to Minnesota. I don't know. You really can't rule anything out at this point with all these trade rumors and with Minnesota's quarterback situation and all the uncertainty going around right now. It seems like all options are on the table as far as what they want to do with the future of that position, not just for next year, but for trying to salvage this year with a Super Bowl caliber defense. And now they are just a quarterback away. from getting all of that clicking. I know a running back is also a part of that and possibly an offensive lineman, but bringing in a quarterback that can at least be consistent because you look at what Kyler Murray has missed out on this year, a lot of that, some of it can be attributed to offensive line play, but a lot of it is due to his decision-making, his reprogression, his off-target throws. A lot of those things aren't reliant on the offensive line. So bringing in a quarterback who can A, be tall enough to see over the line and B, is able to make those throws You're already looking at an upgrade right there and right then and there right away. I think that is also an appealing option to have in there. And the other thing I love about having Kirk Cousins back in Minnesota is the natural leadership ability that he has and just with any team he's on and what he had in this Minnesota Vikings locker room. You can definitely tell that this team and this offense really rallied behind him as a captain of this team, and you can see the impact his leadership had in the locker room, on the field, and in interviews and things like that. You can tell that Vikings players hated to see Kirk Cousins go because of what he brought to this team, from all the elements that he brings to it, from a morale standpoint and everything in between, and that was why it sucked that he got a little bit too expensive for Minnesota to keep in the Twin Cities. However, right now you're in a spot where you can try and bring him in on a one-year rental, have him go on a crazy run to try and get us over that hump that he never could get us over. That's what a lot of people are going to jump out to, is that Kirk Cousins took us as far as he could go. While I usually tend to agree with that, and yes, he was padding his stats at times with Minnesota, I do think that Minnesota has improved from a defensive standpoint significantly, as well as offensively, where he has more weapons to use. And as well as a better offensive line than he ever had in his tenure in Minnesota. But let us know down in the comments below what you guys think about the Kirk Cousins possibility. Do you like the idea of bringing him back to Minnesota? Or do you like the idea of going out and getting a different quarterback like a Daniel Jones or just rolling with Carson Wentz, making a trade for Darnold back? I don't know at this point. But let us know down in the comments below as that's going to take us into the second topic, which is the fraudulent quarterback whisperer as Minnesota stats muse. on Twitter was pointing out about Kevin O'Connell's whispering ability with the quarterbacks, saying that in 2022, Kirk had his worst season with the Vikings. 2023, Kirk is a sub who gets injured. 23, the more Dobbs learns the playbook, the worse he gets. Also in 23, Benches Mullins for Jaron Holland, a home must-win game to stay alive. Josh Freeman vibes for that game, I definitely agree. Darnold set the world on fire in 24, outcoached by McVay in Arizona. And then J.J. McCarthy looks like the worst quarterback in the league in 25. Carson Wentz just dies on Thursday Night Football in 2025. Max Brosmer has the worst quarterback game of all time. That fourth and one naked bootleg is all you got to say. And then in 2026, Murray looks terrible. His worst career season. And he's calling him KC from now on. Because until they get this offense going, there is going to be no O in his name. I thought that was kind of funny. And I do think it brings up an interesting conversation about, is Kevin O'Connell really the quarterback whisperer? And yes, he will say that he didn't coin that term. The media also coined it. So this is a creation that the media or a monster that the media created. And now Kevin O'Connell has to suddenly take all the blame for it when he said multiple times, it's not a term that he coined himself. It's something that the media coined for him. So that is something that where we want to label him as this quarterback whisperer, but it's something that the media created themselves and it wasn't something for Kevin O'Connell. So that's something to keep in mind there. However, when looking at certain things like we saw in that tweet, the evidence. is right there where there is a very compelling argument that you can make for Kevin O'Connell being a quarterback fraud in a sense where he runs a very specific offense that is tailored to a very specific type of veteran quarterback like a Matt Stafford and that is going to be very rare. You're not necessarily going to find that in like 90% of the quarterbacks. They're only going to find that in the top 10% of quarterbacks in the NFL right now. Right now, Minnesota obviously does not have either of those on their roster. And they need to go out and make a move to do that. Right now, Kirk Cousins is playing like a top 10 quarterback. So that could be something that sets you over the edge to go and salvage this season. Go on a nice run during these next couple of games to not go 0-4 during them. And to really kind of just firmly plant yourself in that conversation of being a Super Bowl contender. But let us know down in the comments below what you guys think about the idea of bringing Kirk Cousins to Minnesota. As well as what we had to say on Kevin O'Connell being a possible quarterback fraud. Do you agree with that? I know a lot of people are probably going to jump to that agreement as far as Kevin O'Connell is concerned, but I'm still interested to see if anyone's going to jump to his defense on this as far as the offensive line, the run game, or anything else in between. But let us know down in the comments below if that's going to do it for this episode of Vikings Digest. Again, thank you guys so much for liking, subscribing, hitting that bell icon so you don't miss the episodes when they drop, and thank you to Call Sheet for sponsoring this video. But for now, I've been your host, Griffin. Take care.