Kirk Cousins is a Minnesota Viking again. Somewhere in Flowery Branch, an accountant just slammed his laptop and stared at a wall.
The Las Vegas Raiders traded Cousins, who has earned about $333 million over his career, to the Vikings on Tuesday for a 2027 third-round pick, sending the 38-year-old back to the team he played for from 2018 to 2023. Minnesota is 6-2 with an elite defense and needed someone, anyone, to throw the football after Kyler Murray strained his hamstring.
For fans of the Atlanta Falcons, every completion Cousins throws from here on out will feel like a low blow of sorts. The better he plays in purple, the worse his time in Atlanta looks, especially given Terry Fontenot outright refused to trade him, wanting to absorb the cap hit.
And maybe the only respite for Falcons fans is remembering the time they upset the 15-1 Vikings in the NFC Championship Game back in January 1999. The Falcons would probably take a 67-year-old Gary Anderson right now considering their current kicking woes.
Anyways, let’s go back to the beginning.
The Atlanta Falcons broke the rules to get Kirk Cousins, and it cost them
Atlanta wanted Cousins so badly that in March 2024 that it couldn’t wait for the rules to let it talk to him. The Falcons agreed to a four-year, $180 million deal with $100 million guaranteed shortly after the legal tampering window opened. Then Cousins went to his introductory press conference and casually mentioned he’d already been calling the team’s head athletic trainer and head of PR before he was allowed to.
It was Col. Jessup in “A Few Good Men,” except nobody even had to ask him whether he ordered the Code Red. Cousins just basically blurted out, "YOU'RE GOSH DANG RIGHT I DID."
The NFL investigated, and three months later the Falcons forfeited a 2025 fifth-round pick and paid a $250,000 fine. General manager Terry Fontenot was fined another $50,000.
Then came the draft. About six weeks after handing Cousins $100 million in guarantees, the Falcons took Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall. Cousins later said in Netflix’s “Quarterback” that he felt “a little bit misled.” Hard to blame him there.
Kirk Cousins hid his shoulder and elbow injury from the Falcons
The first half of 2024 went fine. Atlanta started 6-3, Cousins led the swag surf in the locker room, and for a minute it looked like the money was well spent.
Then he took a hit in a Week 10 loss to New Orleans, hurt his right shoulder and elbow, and the Falcons lost four straight. Cousins showed up on the injury report one time, called it a “clerical error” and said he was 100% healthy. He wasn’t.
We found out in February, when he finally admitted he’d been playing hurt. By then he’d already been benched for Michael Penix Jr. with three games left, finishing 7-7 as Atlanta’s starter.
So to recap: the Falcons tampered to get a quarterback, drafted his replacement before he took a snap, then watched him play through an injury nobody would admit to. Atlanta released him this past March.
Kirk Cousins is back where he belongs -- he should have never played for the Falcons
Now it looks like it will all end where it never should have left: back in Minnesota.
Cousins and the Vikings never should have parted ways. The only reason they did is that Minnesota wouldn’t fully guarantee his next deal, and Atlanta was the only team dumb enough to hand him a bloated one.
Granted, the Vikings have their own regrets. They let Sam Darnold walk after a 14-3 season, and he went to Seattle and won a Super Bowl. They drafted J.J. McCarthy to replace Cousins and ended up trading him to the Giants. And on Monday night, Carson Wentz went 8-of-25 for 81 yards and two interceptions in a 23-6 loss to Buffalo.
Will Cousins give Minnesota the offensive boost it needs? Who knows. He threw 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions in nine starts for the Raiders this season, which is fine. But anything is better than Wentz at this point, who can’t even see defenders standing in plain sight in the middle of the field.
And this time, he comes cheap, mostly on Atlanta’s dime. As SI’s Albert Breer pointed out, Cousins is getting paid by three teams in 2026. The Vikings pick up roughly $650,000 of his minimum salary for the rest of the season, plus a $10 million roster bonus in March.
The Falcons are still on the hook for $8.7 million of his contract this season. That’s nearly seven times what the Raiders and Vikings will pay him combined for the games he actually plays this year.
Even as liked as Kirk Cousins was in Atlanta, swag surf and all, I doubt any smartened-up Falcons fan is pulling for him now. Just imagine it: the Falcons paying for a playoff quarterback, and he’s not even on their team.
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