Kirk Cousins had a 59-59-2 record entering the 2022 season, his first under Kevin O’Connell. He disliked that people had labeled him a .500 quarterback. The typically affable Cousins would get prickly when reporters asked about his career record. It’s all about winning, he would insist. The year after he signed a $84 million, fully guaranteed deal to join the Minnesota Vikings, he insisted that his focus was on his quarterback record, not other gaudy statistics.
“The next level really is all about winning,” Cousins said in 2019. “I’m pretty much a .500 quarterback in my career so far, and I don’t think that’s where you want to be, and that’s not why you are brought in or people are excited about you. If I don’t play well, if I don’t have gaudy statistics, but we win multiple playoff games, the narrative will be I went to the next level.”
As Cousins’ free agency has dragged out, people have speculated on whether he’s a $50 million quarterback. Will the Atlanta Falcons swoop in and blow him away with an offer? Did O’Connell recently hint that Cousins will leave in free agency? There are so many unknowns. But the core issue is that we don’t fully understand what each side wants.
We know that Cousins values security and that teams have guaranteed him most of the over $231 million he has earned in his career. We also know that O’Connell believes that Cousins can operate his system at a high level when he’s healthy, and we know the risk involved with signing a 35-year-old coming off an Achilles tear. But we don’t know anything because we don’t fully know what each side wants.
If Cousins were focused solely on winning, isn’t Minnesota his best option? The Falcons have Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and Kyle Pitts, but Justin Jefferson, T.J. Hockenson, and Jordan Addison are a better trio. Atlanta’s defense ranked 24th in DVOA last year, below the Los Angeles Chargers and immediately above the Carolina Panthers. Brian Flores’ unit finished 11th in DVOA last year.
More pertinently, is Cousins Minneosta’s best option if it’s trying to win a championship? Cousins is probably their best immediate option because he’s the best free-agent quarterback and is familiar with their system. But isn’t their best-case scenario moving up for Drake Maye or Jaden Daniels, singing a stopgap like Baker Mayfield, and hoping they maximize a high-upside quarterback on a rookie deal?
Perhaps that’s a pipe dream because the Vikings fell into the mushy middle last year. Seven wins isn’t enough to make the playoffs, nor ten losses enough to land a top pick. Minnesota doesn’t have the assets to go all-in on a move-up like other teams do. Furthermore, the Chicago Bears, Washington Commanders, and New England Patriots will likely take the top three quarterbacks off the board.
Therefore, it’s more of an open question if J.J. McCarthy or Michael Penix Jr. is worth spending a pick on or whether Minnesota is better off overspending on Cousins. Therein lies Cousins’ value. He’s a safe bet, albeit an expensive one. Cousins is familiar to the Vikings and good enough to operate their offense. But is he a championship-caliber quarterback? Is Minnesota’s front office going all-in next season or just trying to survive?
Given how much the Vikings have invested in their roster, it’s hard to believe they don’t have championship aspirations. They hired Flores, spent over $40 million guaranteed on Hockenson, and owe Cousins over $28 million in dead cap next year. They also tried to extend Jefferson last offseason and will try to re-sign him and Danielle Hunter if they can get the Cousins deal done.
But Jefferson won’t sign until he knows Minnesota’s quarterback situation, and the Vikings won’t know if they can sign Hunter until they have finished the Cousins and Jefferson contract negotiations. Cousins could free Minnesota up to make additional moves, but he’s probably not getting a three-year, fully guaranteed deal from them. And the Vikings likely would guarantee Cousins more money if they knew he was a championship-caliber quarterback after injuring his Achilles.
“We have our interests. [Cousins] has his,” Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said at the combine. “We’ll get to the table to see if we can figure out a creative solution and kind of meet in the middle. That’s what every contract negotiation is, and that’s what it’ll be with him. What we do know is [that] we have a really great quarterback, a great leader, somebody that we think we can win the ultimate prize with.”
The details ultimately matter in contract negotiations. No matter how many rumors you hear or what gets reported, it’s impossible to know exactly what each side wants. But you have to believe that if the Vikings fully believed Cousins was the guy to lead them to a championship, and Cousins wanted to win above all else, they won’t have to go until March 13 to get it signed.