Veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins led the Minnesota Vikings to a postseason berth, claiming the second NFC Wild Card spot and upsetting the New Orleans Saints (which had Teddy Bridgewater) in the first round of the playoffs, only to lose to the conference champion San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round.
Cousins, 31, earned his second Pro-Bowl nod for his 2019 season with the Vikings and in 2020 will enter his final season under contract with the NFC North franchise after inking a three-year, $84 million deal in 2017. Cousins turned it around after a rocky first season with Minnesota and led the team to a perfect four-game month of October and generally looked good enough to get the Vikings in the postseason next year, too (off the back of a great defensive and backfield, led by running back Dalvin Cook).
Provided that, what about selling high on Cousins and bringing in a free agent signal-caller to shake things up for the Vikings? One name with an established link to the franchise is Saints quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.
The Argument
Bridgewater, 27, is coming off a two-year stint with the Saints, losers to the Vikings in the teams' past two playoff matchups, and is a free agent. Notably, Bridgewater, a former first-round pick by Minnesota who started the first three professional seasons with the franchise, had to fill in for future Hall of Fame gunslinger Drew Brees under center for five games in 2019. In five starts, Bridgewater threw for 1,205 yards, nine touchdowns, and two interceptions with a 69.7 completion percentage.
In 15 starts this past season, Cousins threw 3,603 yards, 26 touchdowns, and six picks, with a 69.1 completion percentage for the Vikings.
Extrapolated over Cousins' fifteen-game sample, strangely enough Bridgewater's stats look nearly identical to the current Vikings quarterback.
However, the missing ingredient here is twofold: the direction of the league and the value of Cousins. To start with the second point, the 31-year-old going into the final season under his current contract is very valuable across teams looking for a more-than-serviceable QB (think Chargers, Colts, Raiders, Bears, Lions, Bucs, and Panthers). The Vikings could make a mistake in not selling high on Cousins for a future pick or picks.
And to go back to the first point, the NFL requires at minimum some idea of a dual-threat quarterback nowadays—teams need playmakers under center beyond arm strength and accuracy. It would be easy to name 2019 NFL MVP Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens as the example, but it goes farther than that. We've seen it with New York Giants rising sophomore QB Daniels Jones to a more established, yet still young, gunslinger in Super Bowl LIV MVP and champion Patrick Mahomes; you need a ground game in the backfield with more than your running back.
Cousins tallied 63 rushing yards in 15 starts. Bridgewater, four years younger too, had half that number of yards on the ground in a third of the number of starts while Brees sat out.
Between Cook and a potential Bridgewater reunion, the Vikings' offense would be that much more dynamic.
The Verdict
Trade Cousins now while you can maximize his value as an expiring contract to a quarterback-needy franchise and sign Bridgewater to a multi-year deal. In their hypothetical first season together, Bridgewater and the Vikings' ceiling might be the same place Cousins and Minnesota finished in 2019-20, but in the long term the Twin Cities franchise would improve with Bridgewater and Cook running the show on offense.
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