The Kirk Cousins Trade Was Necessary and Should’ve Been Obvious All Along

The Vikings needed an upgrade at quarterback, and at such a low cost, the only surprise is that people thought it wouldn’t get done.

Kirk Cousins is headed back to Minnesota, where he played from 2018 to ’23. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

You finally bite the bullet and take your daughter to Disneyland. Ten thousand dollars later, four exhausting but idyllic days at the park nearly behind you, she looks up with the biggest, most beautiful brown eyes you’ve ever seen and says that the one thing that would make this trip perfect would be to have breakfast with Elsa from Frozen. 

You look over at the sign and see that the character breakfast costs 9,000 DisneyPoints™. It just so happens that you have exactly 9,000 DisneyPoints™ in your digital wallet and can envision a smile that will last you a thousand lifetimes. You imagine your daughter meets her hero, nestling up with the very princess whose dress she’s worn to bed every night for the past two years. Every day on the way to preschool, the two of you harmonize to “Let It Go.” Elsa will give her a hug and you’ll take a picture and make it into a Christmas ornament that hangs on your tree until your very last day on the planet. 

But then—thank God—you remember the importance of assets. You pull your daughter aside and explain the theory that, really, 9,000 DisneyPoints™ today are actually worth 10,760 DisneyPoints™ a year from now based on current exchange rates when adjusted for inflation, expenses and economic flow. So, honey, you say, spending the perfect number of DisneyPoints™ right now and venturing to create a moment that we will cherish forever is actually irresponsible, according to multiple papers you’ve read by Wharton School economics professors who have never stepped foot inside of a theme park or beheld the starry gaze of an innocent child. The 10,760 DisneyPoints™ a year from now, when you most certainly will not like Frozen or Disney anymore, could become anything! We may even be able to make a memory out of it!

One day it’ll all make sense, you tell her, as she quietly sobs while you approach the park exit. There really is nothing in life like properly valuing commodities and assets and setting yourself up for more sustainable marginal future gains. 

Such was the situation facing the Vikings on Tuesday at the trade deadline, when the team’s brass awoke with the most obvious task in the history of modern professional football: either trade for Daniel Jones or Kirk Cousins, or willfully admit that building one of the great defensive teams of your lifetime was all for naught. Carson Wentz had put on one of the worst quarterbacking performances of all time the night before, clearly indicating that he was neither healthy nor skilled enough to stand toe-to-toe with one of the top teams in the NFL. 

The choice was quite clear: Get busy living or get busy dying. And wouldn’t you know it, the Vikings (like the Jaguars on Monday) are ready to make the most of what could be their only trip to Disneyland. Cousins for a third-round pick. Amen. 

The best part about this trade was how ridiculous everyone told us it was just a week ago. The Raiders most certainly wouldn’t abandon their process of coddling Fernando Mendoza, executing the NFL equivalent of holding back their son for a year to dominate in rec basketball. The Vikings love their guys in the room and just don’t do deals like this, c’mon. But all that posturing turns out to be absolute pig slop when you play a horrendous football game in prime time and everyone wearing the same color uniform gets embarrassed to the point where there is no other option but to get a little irresponsible. It’s one of the great parts of being in football and, in a way, being American. 

The second most ridiculous part of this trade was that it took until roughly an hour and a half before the trade deadline to complete, and the haggling was over a gosh darn third-round pick. Which brings us back to the conversation of assets. I could see if the Raiders were hell-bent on receiving a first-round pick for Cousins, but the compensation ended up being a third-rounder. And, the Vikings already have an additional third-rounder (and two extra fifth-round picks, and an extra sixth-round pick). How many assets does one need, truly, to feel comfortable? Why did this not take 48 seconds from start to finish? This iteration of the Vikings is incredibly fun and lovable. Brian Flores created a unit that has a nickname—Young Nasty University—and Cousins can help buoy the offensive stars that the fan base has had to watch slowly disappear over the course of the past two seasons. He’s one of the leading passers in the NFL this season. He looks healthy. He knows the offense. 

We are very good at developing point systems that give us a precision answer to what all of this is tangibly worth, but we were damn close to missing the grander point: Hoarding assets and parlaying assets and coupling assets is useless unless you can properly valuate the potential of the actual moment you’re in. The Vikings have six home games left and three games against hated division rivals. Six or seven of their remaining games are against prospective playoff teams. And now, for the packed houses that are going to show up and act like the third-round pick the team spent on Cousins was the gift of a lifetime, it won’t feel like much of a loss at all. 

This is a season and a team that memories are made of. Thankfully, Minnesota realized as much before the ride was over. 

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