The Minnesota Vikings have plenty of questions entering this offseason but it appears that quarterback isn’t one of them.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said that he expects Cousins will return as quarterback for the 2023 season and that they will “consider all things” regarding a possible contract extension.
The news split Vikings fans as Cousins has put up gaudy numbers during his time in Minnesota, but has just one playoff win to show for it. While his tenure at quarterback is the longest since Daunte Culpepper was under center from 2000 to 2005, Cousins will turn 35 next August, raising the question of how long he will remain in that role and when the Vikings could draft his successor.
The first decision the Vikings have to make is whether to offer Cousins a contract extension. Cousins will enter the final year of a one-year extension he signed last March and will count $36.25 million against the salary cap – the sixth-highest cap hit among quarterbacks next season.
While it’s a high number, it’s manageable enough for the Vikings to play out Cousins’s contract and make a decision in 2023. However, the Vikings are $24.5 million over the salary cap next season and need to find ways to clear cap space.
This could pave the way for Cousins to sign a similar one-year deal that lowers his cap number for next season and extends him into 2024.
This is the most likely scenario due to Cousins’s durability and Adofo-Mensah’s comments to USA Today’s Jori Epstein in July 2022.
“The one asset where you get nervous about not burning it down is quarterback…[We have] a good quarterback [but] we don’t have Tom Brady. We don’t have Patrick Mahomes. … [The Super Bowl] is more likely to win if you have that quarterback [but] it’s very unlikely to have that quarterback.”
Extending Cousins is a good short-term solution but it leaves the future of the position in limbo. Russell Wilson – who turned 34 last November – showed that the age cliff can come quickly and if the Vikings don’t have a succession plan in place, it could leave them empty-handed.
So when could the Vikings draft a quarterback? It should come within the next two years.
2023 is a buyer’s class for quarterbacks as five could go in the first round of the NFL Draft. Alabama’s Bryce Young and Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud are the headliners of the class while Florida’s Anthony Richardson, Kentucky’s Will Levis and Stanford’s Tanner McKee are listed in the top 30 of Pro Football Focus’s big board.
The problem is that none of these quarterbacks could be around when the Vikings are on the clock with the 24th overall pick, and after trades for T.J. Hockenson, Jalen Reagor and Ross Blacklock, Minnesota has just four picks in this year’s draft.
Unless the Vikings decide to trade some of the aging players on their roster for draft picks, they won’t have the draft capital to trade up if they like a quarterback. Even if they did, the Vikings need a massive overhaul on defense which will likely be the focus of next year’s draft.
There’s a better chance the Vikings could take a swing in the 2024 class which features USC’s Caleb Williams, North Carolina’s Drake Maye, Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Texas’s Quinn Ewers. The Vikings could tank for incoming Texas quarterback Arch Manning in 2025, but that’s too far down the road.
While these are all names to remember, they could all play themselves out of the first round with a bad season. There could also be a pop-up name similar to Joe Burrow or Zach Wilson, who played themselves into the first round with a dominant season at the collegiate level.
Either way, the clock is ticking to find a successor for Cousins. If the Vikings don’t, they could wind up with no quarterback at all.
