6 players the Vikings should cut bait with before the 2022 season

Sean Mannion – QB

To understand why the Vikings need to move on from Sean Mannion, just put on the tape of Minnesota’s embarrassing 27-point loss to the Green Bay Packers in Week 17 of last season.

After Kirk Cousins was placed on the Reserve/COVID-19 list, Minnesota was forced to start Mannion under center against the Packers, and it was just a pure disaster.

With their No. 2 quarterback on the field, the Vikings went three-and-out on four of their first five offensive drives in the game, and they didn’t put their first points on the board until the final seconds of the first half.

Regardless of how durable Cousins has been during his career, football is a sport that doesn’t care about the past. Any player on the field can suffer a serious injury at any moment and Minnesota needs to be better prepared for a scenario like this when it comes to their starting quarterback.

If Cousins has to miss any amount of time next season, the Vikings’ chances of getting a win with Mannion as their starter are extremely low.

This isn’t to say that Kellen Mond is the solution as Minnesota’s No. 2 quarterback in 2022, but the Vikings need to find someone to be Cousins’ backup who can actually lead a team to more than one first down in five offensive drives.

With new Minnesota head coach Kevin O’Connell being a former quarterback, hopefully, he has a better idea about how important it is for his team to have a backup signal-caller that can lead an offense to some successful drives.