The Minnesota Vikings got their second win of the season in Week 6, beating the Justin Fields-less Chicago Bears 19-13. Still, the team is just 2-4, quarterback Kirk Cousins is in the final year of his contract, and superstar Justin Jefferson is out for at least another three weeks. It may be time for the Vikings to pull the trigger on a Kirk Cousins trade before the veteran wins just enough games to put Minnesota out of the franchise QB sweepstakes in the 2023 NFL Draft. And NFL insider Peter King says there is a small chance a deal for the QB could happen ahead of the 2023 NFL trade deadline.
“I think it’s not impossible Kirk Cousins gets traded, but I think it’s unlikely,” King wrote in his Football Morning in America column after Week 6. “Unless an injury at quarterback forces a playoff-contending coach very familiar with Cousins, who could play to his strengths, to look for a quarterback.”
King thinks that it would take a truly perfect set of circumstances for a Kirk Cousins trade to happen. He even notes that “If the 49ers got an injury to Brock Purdy, they’d go with Sam Darnold,” ruling out a reunion between Cousins and his former coach in Washington, Kyle Shanahan.
However, there is at least one circumstance where King thinks a Vikings trade could happen.
Why a Kirk Cousins trade is possible
“If Miami loses Tua Tagovailoa before the Oct. 31 trade deadline, who knows if Mike McDaniel would want to roll the dice with Cousins for the rest of the year,” King missed.
In addition to the perfect storm of a top team with a QB injury, there is one more factor that makes a Cousins trade highly unlikely.
“There’s one other factor,” King concluded. “Cousins has a no-trade clause. He’s very likely not going to waive it, no matter how bad the situation gets in Minnesota in the next two weeks, unless it’s—as I said—to a coach he knows well, with an offense he could master.”
The 2023 NFL trade deadline is on Tuesday, October 31.
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