It’s all drama for the Minnesota Vikings entering their Week 5 road game against the New York Giants.
- Stefon Diggs won’t confirm nor deny trade rumors.
- Kirk Cousins felt the need to apologize to Adam Thielen because of poor passes.
- The offensive line continues to be a big problem against good defenses.
Buried within all of the immediate drama is what’s going to happen with Cousins after this season. Leave to long time NFL reporter Peter King to come up with a potential scenario that involves the Vikings moving on from Cousins after this season.
King, during an appearance on Pro Football Talk with Mike Florio this week, said Cousins still deserves more time to prove his worth, but if this season goes poorly the Vikings wouldn’t completely paralyze their 2020 chances if they move on from him.
“It isn’t like he left his team so much in the lurch, that they can’t recover from this. Let’s say that at the end of this year they decide ‘it’s not working, we’re moving on from Cousins,'” King began. ‘If the money that they owe him next year is barely going to be, say 13-14 percent of their cap. That’s really bad. That’s bad, but it isn’t so bad that it’s going to kill you for the next few years.
“To me, the contracts that really hurt you are contracts that are strung out for a long time. This is a quick hit, wham-bam contract over three years that I think the Vikings can recover from.”
The reality is that it’s a $30.5M cap hit if Cousins doesn’t play for the Vikings next season, which at a $195 million salary cap would equate to 15.6 percent of Minnesota’s cap space.
“It appears as though it’s going to be money very poorly spent. And it appears that he could be the biggest free agent bust ever,” King noted.
Of course, moving on from Cousins after the season and still having playoff hopes in 2020 would mean the Vikings would need to either trade for a capable quarterback or draft a guy who starts as a rookie. There’s no way in hell they’d be able to afford another free agent QB.
