Former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins is the favorite to be the Las Vegas Raiders starting quarterback this season, and he looked like himself during the Raiders final preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday, completing 8-of-11 passes for 51 yards as rookie Fernando Mendoza went 7-of-14 for 57 yards and an interception.
But it wasn’t enough for head coach Klint Kubiak to declare Cousins the starter, keeping his options open as the Raiders prepare for their season opener against the Miami Dolphins on September 13.
“I still don’t think we need to name anybody,” Kubiak said after the game via ESPN’s Ryan McFadden. “We have a lot to talk about at a lot of positions, so we want to watch the film and talk about everything as a staff.”
Despite Kubiak’s comments, Cousins is likely to be the starter. But he still seems stuck in the same fate he tried to avoid when he left the Vikings, fending off a younger signal-caller that’s coming for his job.
Kirk Cousins left the Minnesota Vikings to escape his replacement plan and found the same thing
After signing in 2018, Cousins was the unquestioned starter of the Vikings for six seasons, throwing for 23,265 yards, 171 touchdowns and 55 interceptions in 88 starts.
Some Vikings fans still wish Cousins was their quarterback after watching J.J. McCarthy, Carson Wentz and Max Brosmer play quarterback last season, but outside of a four-year, $180 million contract from the Atlanta Falcons, Cousins also left Minnesota because of their plan to replace him.
According to a 2024 article by ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, Kevin O’Connell wanted Cousins to return
more than anyone in the building.” The Vikings also told Cousins that they were looking for a quarterback in the 2024 draft but also didn’t want to play him right away, giving Cousins the clear path to be the starter if he decided to return.
But Cousins decided to go to the Falcons for two reasons. First, the Falcons had made a bigger offer, with $100 million guaranteed. The other was that Cousins deemed the Vikings' offer as a “year-to-year” contract, meaning that whenever they deemed his successor ready, he was likely to take over.
“Cousins had said publicly and privately that he wanted to finish his career in Minnesota, but he also made clear he wanted the structure of the new contract – the guaranteed money, in other words – to reflect that the Vikings wanted the same thing,” Seifert wrote.
"...Internally, the Vikings couldn’t make that commitment. [Former Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah] wanted what he refers to as ‘optionality.’ There was too much value in a rookie quarterback’s contract, with its low salary cap impact to overlap it with a long-term veteran deal.”
With a rookie quarterback coming to watch his back, Cousins decided to leave for Atlanta, only to find out the Falcons were preparing for their future by drafting Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick. Cousins made just 14 starts before Penix took over during the 2024 season and made eight starts for the Falcons when Penix injured his ACL.
After finally getting his release this offseason, Cousins signed with the Raiders on what amounts to be a two-year, $12.6 million contract. But his time as the starter could be short-lived if it even happens at all.
Irony of Kirk Cousins’ final NFL chapter is impossible to ignore
The Raiders’ initial plan was to have Mendoza develop behind Cousins this season, but Kubiak opened a competition, noting that he didn’t “want anyone to be too comfortable in their job” at any position.
Even if this is a philosophy across the roster, it should still have Cousins looking over his shoulder, according to former Cleveland Browns quarterback and current FOX NFL analyst Brady Quinn.
“I never do this, but I’ll just admit it – After watching the first preseason game, I was like ‘Oh you should probably be the starter,’” Quinn said of Mendoza during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show on Thursday.
“...I was like all right, why don’t we just go ahead and start the clock on Fernando Mendoza now? Like, he’s the No. 1 overall pick. It’s why he’s in there.
I know a lot of times you want guys to sit and watch and learn. And especially with a guy like Kirk Cousins, who’s played in the league forever. So he is a very pragmatic guy. So he’d be a great guy for young quarterbacks to learn from.
But I also think he can be that insurance policy for you, where if you put in Mendoza and he’s not coming along the way you’d like him to, you can also give him a bit of a break, or you also have that quarterback who can kind of be there to help guide him along through the entire process.”
Quinn’s comments should be taken with a grain of salt after he flamed out after playing right away when the Browns selected him with the 22nd overall pick in the 2007 NFL Draft. But his view is likely similar to what the Vikings were thinking as they tried to bring back Cousins as a veteran stopgap.
It’s the same situation Cousins found himself in while playing for the Falcons, and after turning 38 this month, it’s likely what his career will be until he heads to the broadcast booth in retirement. For someone who has ranks fourth in NFL history with $321 million in career earnings, he’ll likely get over it. But in many ways, it’s an ironic final chapter to Cousins’s career.
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