Vikings Would Be Wise to Avoid DangeRuss
Ted Schwerzler
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When the Minnesota Vikings open free agency in the coming days, they will do so without a starting quarterback. It appears that Kirk Cousins might be going elsewhere, and that means a new signal caller will be under center in the season ahead. The franchise would be wise to avoid Russell Wilson in that spot.
Russell Wilson Should Be a “No Thanks” for Vikings
Drafted as a third-round pick in 2012, Russell Wilson went from being an overlooked pick out of Wisconsin to taking Matt Flynn’s job with the Seattle Seahawks. A defense-aided Super Bowl later, and Wilson’s career has been one of many accolades. The nine-time Pro Bowl selection has experienced plenty of highs over the course of his time in the NFL, but at this point, he’s near riding off into the sunset.
An impending release from the Denver Broncos is coming, and despite the massive payday handed to him, he’s set to move on to a new organization. With the Vikings needing to find an alternative, they represent a potential landing spot. If Kwesi Adofo-Mensah wants to avoid the fallout that could come with Wilson going sideways, then skirting him at all costs seems straightforward.
Of course, things didn’t go well for Wilson in Denver. He quarterbacked a team that won just 11 out of the 30 games he started, and he seemed to regress as a player. The 2022 season was incredibly poor, and while things got better from a production standpoint under Sean Payton last season, it was evident that all parties simply could not get on the same page. There is value in removing Payton from the picture, and Wilson could see one last hoorah without that sort of a head coach, but you’re grasping at straws in hoping for that to come to fruition.
Wilson is understandably not the same quarterback who won a Super Bowl all of those years ago, and he definitely isn’t the player who will lead an offense on his arm talent alone. The Vikings don’t have the defense that the Legion of Boom Seattle Seahawks did, and they probably don’t even have the group Wilson grew accustomed to supporting in Denver.
The veteran quarterback would get a significant boost in skill position talent, but he’d have to defer to egos more valuable than his, and he’d need to do so on a much lesser pay scale.
If Minnesota is looking for an option for the future, then Wilson shouldn’t be considered to be it. He is the same age as the departing Kirk Cousins and has recently experienced substantially less success. Plenty of a circus also follows him, and inviting that to the Vikings at this juncture seems like an odd decision.
Ted Schwerzler is a blogger from the Twin Cities that is focused on all things Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings. He’s active on Twitter and writes weekly for Twins Daily. As a former college athlete and avid sports fan, covering our pro teams with a passion has always seemed like such a natural outlet.
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