Kirk Cousins Knows He Has to Earn a Long-Term Future With the Vikings

Cousins is entering the final season of his contract for the first time in his Minnesota tenure.

For the first time since he joined the Vikings five years ago, Kirk Cousins will go into this season in the final year of his contract. Two different regimes have signed him to extensions since his initial deal in 2018, but this offseason, the Vikings decided they were comfortable letting their starting quarterback enter a contract year.

Cousins has been through this before. He entered the final year of his rookie contract in Washington without an extension, then played under the franchise tag for two straight years before signing with the Vikings. The 12th-year veteran knows that a lack of long-term contract security is a reality faced by the vast majority of players in the NFL.

"It’s more the norm than the exception," Cousins said in a Wednesday press conference. "I think the exception is that you have something penciled in for future years. Most of our locker have no idea what’s coming in three or four months, let alone three or four years or next year. So, I feel like I’m one of the guys, like we’re all in this together, that’s the way this thing works, and I think it’s part of what makes this league great. Because everybody has an edge. Everybody’s working, everybody’s got something to prove. Nobody can operate with entitlement or comfort or put in less than their best, and I think that’s the best thing about our league."

Cousins is entering his sixth year with the Vikings, meaning that at the end of this season, he'll have spent as much time in Minnesota as he did in Washington. He'd love to extend his stay and remain the team's quarterback in 2024, but he's fully aware that he'll have to earn that opportunity. 

"I want to be in Minnesota," he said. "Yeah, that’s kind of a no-brainer, so hopefully we can earn the right to do that. I’ve always said that. When I say I would like to be in Minnesota, there’s a lot of things I would like to have, but you’ve got to go earn it. That’s kind of where I’m at."

In Cousins' five seasons with the Vikings, there have been just two playoff appearances and one postseason victory. Putting that all on his shoulders would be unfair, as he's dealt with poor offensive line play, defensive struggles, and a lack of continuity on offense, among other things. But it's also true that he has struggled to elevate the team the way elite quarterbacks can — while being paid like one. 

There was buzz around the idea of the Vikings moving up in the first round to find their quarterback of the future this year. Instead, they took USC wide receiver Jordan Addison, who will replace Adam Thielen as one of Cousins' top pass-catchers. They did take BYU quarterback Jaren Hall in the fifth round, but he's unlikely to become more than a backup.

"When you go into a contract negotiation, you're trying to come up with solutions together," GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said after the draft. "It's not just what I want or the Vikings want or even what Kirk wants. It's what we can do together and ultimately put together that Lombardi. Sometimes you come to a place where it's like, let's talk later, this is the solution for now. That's all that's happened. ... Every option is open to us going forward, and we're just really excited about Kirk this year, the weapons we've added in free agency, the weapons we've added in the draft, and we'll see what happens after that."

One of the things Cousins has dealt with during his Vikings tenure is a lack of stability on the offensive coaching staff. Minnesota went through four different offensive coordinators in the final four years of the Mike Zimmer era — John DeFilippo, Kevin Stefanski, Gary Kubiak, and Klint Kubiak — and then hired Kevin O'Connell to replace Zimmer last year. 

With Cousins going into his second year under O'Connell, he finally has that continuity that's been lacking. Both coach and quarterback have talked this offseason about how they believe another year in this system will yield better results.

"I think football is so much about continuity and chemistry," Cousins said. "When you constantly have turnover, it’s hard to create that."

"It’s just night and day from last year," he added. "So you’d like to think that starting in a much further spot in May advances everything — to August, to September, you’re just more comfortable. ... Having somebody in my helmet for the second year in a row, I’m really encouraged by, because there had always been that change."

Cousins doesn't know what the future holds beyond this season — and that's OK. Right now, he's just focused on staying present and attacking each day. If the results are good enough this fall, he might be able to earn a long-term future with the Vikings.

"I just think it’s healthiest to be present, to be focused on Phase 2, Wednesday, and live right now in the moment," he said. "Again, when you do that and you do it day after day, you get to next February and you say, ‘Everything will work out,' and it’s best to just stay in the present to have March go the way you want it to go."

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