Kirk Cousins is back with the Vikings. Now what?

Well, after an atrocious 23 to 6 loss to the Buffalo Bills last night at US Bank Stadium, the Vikings are looking to save the team and hopefully save their playoff hopes. We're now able to report that the Vikings are acquiring Kirk Cousins to be their quarterback for the remainder of this season from the Las Vegas Raiders in exchange for a third round draft pick in 2027. Ben Gastling is with the Star Tribune and he joins us now. Ben, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks, Courtney. It's been a busy day, but time is a flat circle, I guess. So here we go again with Kirk Cousins. It sure is. Yeah, number eight is coming home. Okay, there were a lot of names in the lineup, potential QBs that the Vikings might make a deal for. Thank you. How do you think they landed on Kirk Cousins? I think there were a number of ways that this This could have gone, but... If you were looking at the quarterbacks that made the most sense, I think Kirk Cousins was probably always at the top of the list. It was just going to be a question of how much would they give up to get him and how much would the Raiders be interested in parting with him given the fact that he had played as well as he had for them. But his history in this offense, his history with Kevin O'Connell, his history with Justin Jefferson, I think all of those were big factors in this deal coming together. And as they needed somebody, you need – You don't have time to develop a quarterback. You don't have time to teach somebody the offense. You need somebody that can come in and play and knows what they're doing. So that meant Kirk Cousins, probably Daniel Jones, would have been options. And then you could go down to a couple other quarterbacks like Mac Jones that had had history in offenses like this one. But there's nobody that knows this offense better. There's nobody that knows Kevin O'Connell better. There's still nobody that's completed more passes in Justin Jefferson's career to Justin Jefferson than Kirk Cousins. This was one of those that if you need a quick fix, you need a plug and play option, you need somebody that's familiar. It was, the list was not very long and Cousins was at the top of it. Yeah, truly, he is plug and play. But he's coming off a three interception game. And he isn't the player that he used to be. I mean, he's 38 years old. He's certainly not moving like he used to. And his arm strength has waned too. So just talk about where he's at right now and whether we're going to see the same Kirk Cousins that we saw back in the 2020s. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's... One of the big questions. I mean, if he goes and plays on Sunday against the Packers, his first snaps there for the Vikings in this stint with the team will be in the building where he got hurt three years ago where he tore his Achilles. So... Some of you mentioned the throwing strength and some of that I think has come from that Achilles where is he able to push off with the same level of force that he used to have? And I remember that in 2024, I went down to do a story on him in Atlanta that first year he was with the Falcons. He just watched him throw and still was coming back from that injury, but the arm strength was not the same and he's not. Known as probably the biggest arm in the NFL, never has had the biggest arm in the NFL anyway. So there's all of those things. How does the ability to stop and take hits that he's going to probably, he's not a mobile quarterback, never has been somebody that is playing that way. So he's a guy that stands in the pocket, has been able to take some hits and make throws on time, even though he's got somebody in his face. That's a lot of what he's done, but he's not a player you want to lose. Because then you're right back in the same durability questions and availability questions that you had before. So there are all of those things. But when you're trying to make a move in the middle of a season, you just don't have a lot of people to pick from. It's just going to be really hard to trade for a starting quarterback in the middle of the year. So I think they do it with all of those caveats in mind. You go in with your eyes open and try to protect him as best you can. And hope that he can run the offense as effectively as you need him to do it. Because the thing is, this defense is playing at a championship level. And I think a lot of this is if we could just get the quarterback to a kind of a baseline level that Kevin O'Connell has talked about. Pair it with this defense and the way the special teams has played. I think they feel like they can make a run. Yeah, the defense is just incredible. It's so tragic to watch the fact that they don't really have a legitimate offense on the other side. So hopefully this fixes some of that, gets Justin Jefferson back in the end zone where he wants to be making catches. We'll see. But what happens at the end of this season? I mean, we're talking he's here until the end of the season. Kyler Murray, Carson Wentz, they're both on one year deals. This does not solve the long Is that a long-term problem that the Vikings have? It does not. That is absolutely correct. They have a long-term question at this position, and there is no answer to this on the current roster. I mean, you're not going to look at Kirk Cousins at age 39, he'll be 39 next year, as the long-term solution when you weren't doing that two or three years ago. That's not going to be, I mean, you could maybe bring him back for a year, but you're not going to do... What you would have done a few years ago where you say this is a guy we're going to build around. So then you're talking about possibly going back into the draft again. I mean, this is kind of just the loop of the last few years on repeat, I guess. But it's a deep quarterback class. They won't be picking at the top of the draft. There's a lot of questions about where the quarterbacks might fit. You could look at those things or possibly take a spin through some of the quarterbacks that they maybe have looked at in the draft in the past that are coming up for second contracts that their initial teams don't keep. That has been an option. That was the Sam Darnold route that worked for them a few years ago. But I think a lot of it right now is you worry about next year, next year, and a team that's six and two that they feel like has a chance to do something. This is very much a move for right now, and then- Those long term questions which are completely valid and completely something they're gonna have to deal with in the not too distant future. You'll kind of face those when they come. I mean, it feels like we're in this merry-go-round of quarterbacks. I mean, we haven't landed on a permanent quarterback in years. Yeah. So that prompts my next question of, What does Kevin O'Connell's future look like at this franchise? Do you think that ownership in the front office is committed to him? Or do you think that he ultimately pays the price for having an offense that's performing so abysmally? Well, I mean, his contract runs through 2029. So and that commitment is substantial. I believe it's an eight-figure deal, annual eight-figure salary. I don't expect that he's going anywhere. I think there's still a pretty strong belief in Kevin O'Connell as a leader, as the CEO effectively of this football team. I don't think any of that's going to change and I don't have any reason to believe that his job is in any kind of jeopardy. But he's still looking for a playoff win and he was brought in to solve the quarterback position which They've won a lot of games, but the quarterback position is not solved for the long term. And I think that's still very much something that is sitting in front of him. When you're talking about keys to permanence in the NFL or keys to longevity, I should probably say, because nobody's permanent, but the keys to longevity are tying yourself to a quarterback that is going to be there for a long time and showing that you can win in the playoffs. And both of those things are still on Kevin O'Connell's to-do list. So the discussion of what his future looks like in Minnesota, while I don't think There's any real reason to believe that that's on any kind of a short-term basis. He does have to show that he could find the answers to those things if he wants to have the kind of run that his record, at least in the regular season, would suggest is possible. There's still a lot of those things that are before him if he wants to have that kind of longevity. Okay, well, we'll see how it all plays out. The Vikings obviously hoping to keep their playoff hopes alive with the old number eight. Coming home to Minnesota, Ben Gessling from the Star Tribune. We so appreciate you making the time. We know you're busy, but you are the man to talk about when it comes to, you're the man to talk to, I should say, when it comes to the Vikings. So we appreciate you making the time. I appreciate you having me. Thanks, Courtney.