5 teams that could trade for Vikings QB Kirk Cousins in 2023
By Chris Schad
The Minnesota Vikings would like to work out a contract extension with Kirk Cousins, but if talks go sideways, there are several teams that could be willing to make a deal.
The Minnesota Vikings have a problem that few teams in the NFL have. Kirk Cousins is a stabilizing force under center and has thrown for 4,000 yards in four seasons and 30 or more touchdowns in three seasons since coming to Minnesota in 2018.
The Vikings have won less than eight games once during that time, and Cousins appears to be ready to return coming off a 13-win season in 2022, but Cousins’ future beyond 2023 is a little less clear.
Entering the final year of his contract, Cousins and the Vikings would like to work out a contract extension. General manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah told reporters at the NFL scouting combine that while Cousins’s camp would like certainty in his next contract, the Vikings would like flexibility.
The two sides could find a common ground, but Adofo-Mensah’s comments also didn’t sound like a general manager dying to have Cousins for the next five seasons.
“I do know one thing…[Cousins] is good enough,” Adofo-Mensah said. “He meets that first threshold and that’s a question that a lot of [teams] can’t answer with a yes, so we need to treat that in the proper importance that it is.”
If the Vikings aren’t willing to commit to the type of fully guaranteed deal that Cousins has signed in the past, it could lead to an impasse in negotiations. If Cousins’ camp isn’t keen on playing out his contract, it could open the door to a trade.
Such a scenario is highly unlikely – especially with the no-trade clause in Cousins’ contract – but in this article, we’ll look at five teams who could be interested in Cousins and how desperate they could be to get him.