After the most recent showing by Kellen Mond and Sean Mannion, something had to be done.
Two days after Mond and Mannion threw for 147 total yards against the San Francisco 49ers, the Vikings took a step to amend their backup QB situation by acquiring veteran Nick Mullens in a trade with the Las Vegas Raiders. They sent back a conditional seventh-round pick in 2024.
At this stage in the game getting someone better than Mullens is virtually impossible unless the Vikings were willing to give up a much higher pick.
“I think in the end, we’re trying to see who can come of the bench and help us win a football game,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said after Saturday night’s loss to San Francisco.
The answer was not on the field against the 49ers. In two preseason games, the Minnesota Vikings’ two backup quarterbacks put up just 27 points and averaged 5.7 yards per attempt. Their game performances were reflective of how the operation looked in practice.
While the backup quarterback position has mostly been a clipboard job since Kirk Cousins arrived in 2018, last year’s loss to the Green Bay Packers with Cousins on the shelf with COVID should have been enough evidence to convince the Vikings’ new brass that they needed to do better but they elected to put their own eyes on the Mond-Mannion combo during training camp.
In this case, past results were an indicator of future performance. In 2021, the third-rounder Mond struggled in camp and the Vikings elected to sign Mannion after he was cut by Seattle. Mannion was elevated from the practice squad to be QB2 and got the call in Green Bay when Cousins went out. Former head coach Mike Zimmer was questioned about whether he considered starting the younger QB at Lambeau Field but commented that he did not after seeing Mond every day in practice.
Adding a QB who increases the odds of winning from nearly zero to one-in-three if Cousins misses time is an upgrade but that doesn’t exactly mean there should be parades. Mullens has started 17 games since 2018 and won five. He has a career 87.3 quarterback rating, 26 touchdowns, 22 interceptions and just 16 “big-time” throws compared to 31 “turnover-worthy” plays, per PFF.
But without a big budget for the position, there aren’t many better options. Around the league there are only a handful of backup situations that could be considered reliable but all of those QBs cost money. The top guys — Case Keenum with the Bills, Andy Dalton in New Orleans, Tyrod Taylor with the Giants, Colt McCoy in Arizona, Teddy Bridgewater in Miami — are all making at least $2.5 million on the salary cap in 2022 and when the league’s free agent backups were finding homes the Vikings couldn’t afford to spend those dollars.
With cuts on the way the Vikings could have waited to see which QBs lost camp battles but they likely would have ended up with a list of players with the same shortcomings as their current backups and it would have put them farther behind in acclimating the new backup.
So the Vikings spent virtually nothing to improve a position they hope they won’t have to use. That’s about as good as they could have done after being let down by the backup QB candidates during camp and preseason.
Related: Did the Vikings change our minds during training camp?
