Kirk Cousins remains focused on the upcoming season and not on his impending free agency in 2024.
Cousins enters the 2023 season on the final year of his deal with the Vikings, after the two sides reportedly couldn’t come to an agreement on a further extension earlier this offseason.
When asked whether his contract status will have an impact on his play during the season, Kirk responded: “I think that’s been my whole life in this league.”
“And I view that in training camp, too,” he continued. “When I go out there, I view it like, ‘I’m only as good as my last pass, my last practice,’ so it’s sort of been life for me. And I’d even go back to college, in quarterback competitions with Nick Foles. It basically felt like, ‘You’re going out there every day and putting your job on the line.’ And that’s quarterbacking. I’ve been doing it for 16 years, this will be my 17th.”
The 35-year old quarterback is entering his sixth season with the Vikings, coming off the back of a 13-4 season leading the Vikings to their first division title since 2017.
If there is any resentment towards the Vikings front office about not extending him, Kirk isn’t showing it when asked about his future.
“I don’t think it’s, you know, I will say I remember when a quarterback was drafted high in New England and Tom [Brady] was the starter, and Tom made the point, ‘There is no entitlement in the NFL,” he said.
“And if there is entitlement in the NFL, that organization is probably doing it wrong.’ So I think it’s healthy when players need to go out every day and nobody’s entitled to anything. I think that’s a healthy way to run an organization. It’s gonna bring out the best in all of us. If it ever isn’t that way here, I would be the first one to complain and say, ‘Hey, I sense some entitlement, so let’s change that.'”
Cousins is set to play in the same offensive system for a second consecutive season for the first time in his Vikings career. The man heading that offense, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, was also asked Wednesday about Kirk’s impeding contract status, responding: “Yeah, him and I have talked dating back to much earlier than just the first game week.”
“A lot of the time it is just asking questions,” O’Connell continued. “Where his head is at. How he is feeling. Most of the time it veers toward scheme, and how we want to play and what is being asked of him and how he can do his job at a really high level.
“I think it would be naive of me to not at least be there for him, at least in a way he knows that I fully fully support him not only as our captain and starting quarterback, but he knows my feeling toward him and those feelings where the same last year before we ever played just knowing my history with him. All he has done since day one has really just enhance who I believe Kirk Cousins is as a quarterback, a leader and just a man amongst our locker room.”
