every few years. They get to the playoffs. Once every
decade. They get to the NFC Championship Game, you know,
they have lost like seven, straight, NFC championship
games, dating back to 1977 Kirk Cousins, who has gotten
to the Vikings to the playoffs. One time in four years. He
signed a contract to stick around through 2023 at
a minimum. Here. He is. From the start of the Minnesota
offseason program under new coach, Kevin O'Connell talking
about
Is decision to extend his contract from 20-22
through 2023?
I think the short answer is I want to be in Minnesota Viking,
you know, I wanted to help create some cap space so that
we could put together the roster that you do feel really
good about. And and I think it was just trying to always,
you know, find win-wins. And I think it was a way to create
a win-win and, and then hopefully, at least a lot of
wins this fall. My mindset was really to be a viking. I would
like to retire as a viking and so I would like to To
play my way into that if you will, I know. I got to earn
the right to do that. But if I could draw it up, it would be
play well enough that there, never, you never have to play
or wear another Jersey anywhere else.
See, I don't buy that because
he only does three-year contracts and now he's got
a two-year Commitment. If he really wanted to be with
the Vikings, over the Long Haul, he would have done something that
lasted more than two seasons. Now, you do surrender,
the discretion to the team at some Point. Because when we get
past the early years of any contract, becomes a team held
option.
Cousins has always been willing
to bet on himself and always been willing
to stare down potential, free agency,
and he will have the flexibility after 2023 to move
on if he so chooses, but
when you look at Patrick Mahomes who clearly wants to
retire a chief signing a contract that goes into
the next decade and you've got Kirk Cousins doing 332.
I don't know that I'm ready to buy the idea that he's
really intent on retiring, with the Vikings, and that's okay.
That's okay. If his goal is to make as much money as possible.
That's fine. But it feels more like, it's
to make as much money as possible.
Not retire at the Vikings. He's almost like the quarterback
version of the owner mindset. We've been talking about today
who cares about winning Super Bowls. I'm going to walk out of
this
with a jackpot that I never would have had if I didn't play
this system, the way that I've done it. To maximize my
Revenue,
there may not be a player who was done the business of
the NFL better than Kirk Cousins. Going back with Washington and
the
franchise tags. And what he's done with guaranteed money. It's
stunning stunning, what he's done. I'm going to end if you
sit there and look at his stats, this why you just can't
go by stats.
I mean, he's a career 67% of completion guy. 223 touchdowns
just 91 interceptions. I mean, You see him when you see him
play well, but you never see this team
do anything. So it's like
when it when do they get over? The hump, can they get over
the hump? And and no, I mean, we do this every year with them.
Never bad enough to get a high pick on the never good enough
to be right there talking about him as
one of the contenders.
They're stuck in a horrible spot and I don't mind him
saying I want to retire a viking. Listen, if he plays are
another two years and he's playing great. Maybe he'll sign
another extension if they actually start going. There.
But,
I mean, it's been a vicious circle for them and God knows
what the talent with feeling and Jefferson and cook in
the backfield. I know they tweaked a line over now and then in
the defense was somewhat inconsistent last year
without a doubt. So you keep trying to fill those holes. You
have some spots that are really good right now and you just
keep wondering. But I mean man, Michael we are losing our minds
with them, right? Because we're waiting for them to go to
the next level, but it just
seems like you just stuck on a treadmill walking.
Getting while you're walking in and says you're going, you
know, mile after mile on the treadmill. You're pretty much
standing in one place on the treadmill as you're doing it
and you just you just don't see this team. Go anywhere.
There's a point where if you're a fan of the Vikings you just
have to wonder, whether you're being grifted that
they've put together a team. That's just good enough to keep
separating you, from your money,
step, right up. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls
children of all ages. We have a team that will be almost good
enough to make you think you have a chance. To finally watch
the team, get back to the Super Bowl after forty. Five long
years at some point
when you're that close,
but they can never punch it through and I came to that
conclusion a couple of years ago when they lost soundly to
the 49ers on a game. We did on NBC at at Levi Stadium. The
last game
that I was at present for
before the world turned upside down with the pandemic.
They're never going to be good enough to play with the best
team that in.
Urges in the NFC, in any given year. There's always going to
be a great team
and the Vikings are never going to be good enough to compete
with that great team. And it feels like they're wired to
never be that great team. They never go all in like the Rams
do, it's very cautious. It's very careful.
And let's build a team that can get in playoff contention.
And I say all the time, Mike
that any team should strive to be relevant in to December and
through December, because that's when people keep showing
up for games.
Buying all kinds of overpriced stuff. That's when kids put
their Christmas lists together and they want Vikings jerseys,
not twins, jerseys or Timberwolves jerseys or Wild
jerseys or University of Minnesota jerseys. They want
Vikings jerseys.
You want to have a team that is still contending
into the Christmas season and into the final weeks of
the season and every year the Vikings are regardless of
whether they punch it through to the playoffs. They're rarely
horrible. They're rarely lost by Halloween.
They're always hanging around. And at some point, the fans
just To look at it and say,
I feel like they're just content to always kind of hang
around because they get us fired up every year to think it
can be the year. And then you know for one reason or another
or five or ten reasons, it never is.
But you know, what, a fan doesn't want to do Mike. They
don't want to be that fan. That says I'm done with them and
then the next year they do it because they are kind of right
there. I mean, I mentioned the offensive Firepower they had
past rosters last year and then injuries and other
situations took some of the past rosters away,
you know, you still have
Harrison Schmitt back there, making Pro Bowl after Pro Bowl.
So again, it is enough to get you somewhere to always. And if
you're a fan, listen, what's fan short for
fanatic. We were close this year. Maybe it's next year, and
it doesn't seem to matter. If it's 10 years, 15 years, 20
years. That if your clothes, you can think about next year,
your kind of, its kind of a damning thing when you're
horrible and you're like, well,
next year. We're not going to be much better. But what what
throws that aside we seem teams like years. All the Rams 5 and
11, 1 T, 1 year, and winning the Super Bowl, the next. So
you see that get done. So that's
why fans become Fanatics and say
even though our team doesn't look good. You never know what
happens on Sunday. You never know how the ball bounces. We
could be there. And if your clothes like Minnesota is,
then you're really getting the fans hopes up to say,
okay. We're close this year. Maybe next year.
Even if it's rinse and repeat year after year.
Yeah. And The Vikings has been a lot of rinsing and repeating
and 11 and 6 or 10 and 7 or 9 and 8 and we'll see what they
do
this year, but they got a lot to do and you got to
first time GM, first time head coach, right? The only good
news for the Vikings is there, division
is not great. You've got new coach in new GM in Chicago.
You've got second year of a new regime in Detroit,
and the Packers will be the best team in the division. But
they'll still be vulnerable without Davante Adams, and
we'll find out in 17 days what they do. If anything to address
that void
in the draft or if they trade for one of these guys, that's
ready to get a new contract.