Kirk Cousins
While general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah insisted this week his team could “do both” in playing competitively and also rebuilding, the reality is the Minnesota Vikings have a renewed two-year window.
For onlookers of the team, this mentality is nothing new. Each year since 2016, the Vikings re-tool and make a run at the Super Bowl — as every good football team with a talented roster should do. However, when Minnesota’s ownership fired Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer after an 8-9 season, there was a temptation to believe the franchise would finally — after a long, long wait — rebuild from top to bottom.
The franchise isn’t doing that.
Instead, the Vikings renewed their subscription to playoff contendership, chiefly by recommitting to the quarterback, Kirk Cousins, for a total of — you guessed it — two seasons.
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Aside from Adofo-Mensah and new head coach Kevin O’Connell repeating over and over the wealth of talent on the roster when hired, Cousins’ extension was the first domino to indicate a re-upping of all-in stakes.
Thankfully for the organization, Minnesota can still draft a young quarterback as a bettor’s hedge to Cousins’ next two seasons. It’s what the Kansas City Chiefs did in 2017. But whether Adofo-Mensah does that or not, he afforded O’Connell and Cousins two years to work together as the two are evidently pals.
Then what happened? Well, Adofo-Mensah left Danielle Hunter’s contract as-in [for now], which conveniently runs out in, well, two years. Hunter aligns with Cousins in that regard. The most important player on the field, the quarterback, gets the defensive services of the best defender on the field, Hunter, for the first two years of the O’Connell experiment. The thinking is straightforward.
Two clues — they fell into your lap. After that, the ballclub pillaged the Green Bay Packers for their best defender, Za’Darius Smith. A team doesn’t employ and pay Hunter and Smith while not contending for a championship. Smith’s deal is wildly team-friendly, but at heart, it’s a one or two-year audition with the purple and gold football team as Smith reestablishes his stardom after a season-long 2021 back injury.
Two for Cousins, two for Hunter, two for Za’Darius Smith. The number two number is everywhere — like the Oprah meme is handing them out.
The beauty of this pertains to O’Connell’s maiden voyage as a head coach. He is not strutting into Minneapolis with an aimless team seeking to rebuild with an intentionally bad roster. Conversely, Adofo-Mensah is taking all of Spielman’s guys, trusting O’Connell to squeeze glory out of them, and making a run at the title.
That strategy is not what everybody wanted. Some wanted a from-the-ground-up start from scratch. That is not on the way, at least not for two years.
So, Cousins’ supporters, Cousins’ detractors, and everybody in the middle of the debate will get to see what the controversial quarterback can do with an offensive-minded head coach.
O’Connell and Cousins have two years to prove it, or Cousins will actually head elsewhere if more of the same (from 2020 and 2021) persists.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. His YouTube Channel, VikesNow, debuts in March 2022. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sally from Minneapolis. His Viking fandom dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).