Vikings Head Coach Kevin O'Connell Addresses Kirk Cousins' Future in First Press Conference
It didn't take long.
After Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O'Connell — the young, innovative general manager-head coach duo tasked with leading the next era of Minnesota Vikings football — gave their opening statements at O'Connell's introductory press conference on Thursday evening, O'Connell got one easy question (about the tone he'll set in the first meeting with his players) before the conversation shifted to the topic on everyone's mind.
Will Kirk Cousins be the Vikings' quarterback in 2022?
"Well, I know he's under contract and I'm excited to coach him," O'Connell said. "We've already started thinking about how we're going to build those systems for him and our other quarterbacks and really the tremendous skill group that we have, our guys up front. It takes all 11 [players] to move the football on offense, to run it, to throw it, to score points in the red zone. But I'm anticipating Kirk being a part of what we do."
If that answer — "I know he's under contract" — doesn't sound like a definitive yes, the rest of O'Connell's first Vikings press conference sure had that feel. Everything he said gave the impression that he's planning on coaching Cousins this season — and perhaps beyond.
Adofo-Mensah echoed that sentiment.
"I'm excited that he's excited to coach him and lead him," the Vikings' GM said. "We're focused on building the team around [Cousins] to set us up to succeed the best we can."
O'Connell, more than any other candidate for the Vikings' head coaching vacancy, has a detailed knowledge of the quarterback situation he's inheriting in Minnesota. He was Cousins' quarterback coach with Washington in 2017, the year before Cousins signed a massive free agent contract with the Vikings. O'Connell knows firsthand what Cousins does well, what he can struggle with at times, and what makes him tick as a person.
By all accounts, that's part of why O'Connell got this job. Not only did he wow the Vikings' search committee with his presence, preparedness, and vision, he gave a "nuanced review" of Cousins and how his offensive system could get the most out of the polarizing, expensive, highly-accurate quarterback.
"I think Kirk has played at a very high level, and he's done a lot of really good things throughout his career," O'Connell said. "I know who he is as a player, and I know what he's capable of, and part of our job as coaches is maximizing a player's ability to go out every single Sunday and have success. I feel that's going to be an advantage for us as we build our system offensively, make sure we really focus on the things Kirk does well — which I do think are a lot of aspects of playing the position — and help him on a daily basis connect with his team, lead us, be a completely quieted-mind quarterback that can go play because he's talented enough to go do that, putting him in the best possible situations to have success."
Adofo-Mensah and O'Connell both talked about the importance of communication, collaboration, and culture in their introductory press conferences. The two will be working closely over the next couple months to shape the Vikings' roster to their liking. And while they have plenty of big decisions to make on the futures of various players, the Cousins decision clearly stands head and shoulders above the rest.
For now, all signs continue to point to Cousins sticking around as the starting quarterback in Minnesota. Insider reports along those lines have piled up this month. There were the multiple ESPN reports that O'Connell is a believer in Cousins, and there have been multiple NFL Network reports suggesting this hire means Cousins won't be going anywhere.
On Thursday, O'Connell didn't give any reason to doubt that idea. He praised Cousins at length and talked about building an offense that plays to his strengths as a passer, getting the Vikings' dangerous receiving weapons open and making things easy on their quarterback. O'Connell was asked about how Cousins compares to Matthew Stafford, the QB he just won a Super Bowl with in Los Angeles, and said the two have a lot of physical similarities as "elite throwers."
"I think Kirk, the one thing I've always noticed about him is he's incredibly accurate with the football," O'Connell said. "He plays with great rhythm and timing and precision, and I think we can build an offensive system like we had in LA to take advantage of that skill set."
"Matthew Stafford is one of the most talented players I've ever been around. I have so much respect for him obviously from a physical standpoint, but also that makeup and that ability to process and do a lot of things at the line of scrimmage. I see Kirk being able to do a lot of those things, and I see us being able to build an offense to maximize what he does best, which happens to be what a lot of quarterbacks want to be able to do best."
At least in their public messaging, the Vikings' leadership is all on the same page on the Cousins front. The Wilfs, who own the team, have insisted on numerous occasions that they see the Vikings as a team that will be very competitive in 2022. There's no indication that a rebuild is something they're considering, because they believe the pieces are in place for the Vikings to be closer to Super Bowl contention than some might think of a team that's gone 15-18 over the past two seasons.
If competitiveness in 2022 is the plan, then keeping Cousins is a no-brainer. For all of his faults — being too conservative at times, religiously sticking to what his reads tell him, inconsistency under pressure and out of structure — he remains an immensely talented and accurate passer. When given time, he can make every throw you'd want a quarterback to make. The numbers, the highlight throws, the connection with Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen — it's all there. And with Kellen Mond seeming unlikely to become a starting option and question marks surrounding the QBs in this year's draft class and free agent pool, there doesn't appear to be a better option for O'Connell and the Vikings this season than Cousins.
But with all of that said, there's still a decision to be made.
If Cousins' cap hit this season was $25 million, this probably wouldn't be a discussion. But it's not — it's $45 million, the third-largest in the league. If Adofo-Mensah and the Vikings are going to retain as much talent as possible while bringing in players from the outside to fill some of the holes on this roster, that cap number isn't ideal.
Because there's no reason to expect Cousins to take a pay cut, the Vikings are left with three options. They could move forward with Cousins in the final year of his contract, finding ways to create cap space despite that $45 million number making things difficult. They could pursue another extension for Cousins, which would come at a hefty long-term cost but would lower his immediate cap hit. Or they could poke around the league and explore the idea of trading Cousins to one of the many quarterback-needy teams out there.
Every indication thus far has been that Cousins will remain Minnesota's quarterback this fall, and everything O'Connell and Adofo-Mensah said on Thursday only added to that perception. But for as much as O'Connell may like Cousins, the onus remains on him and Adofo-Mensah to have the best long-term interest of the Vikings in mind when making this decision. That could mean retaining flexibility by letting Cousins play out this final year of his contract. Or it could mean going against everything they've said publicly and considering a trade, even if that seems substantially less likely than it did a couple weeks ago.
O'Connell and Adofo-Mensah's words tell us Cousins is their quarterback. Let's see if their actions back that up.
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