Kirk Cousins was reportedly a busy man behind the scenes when Kevin O’Connell’s name came up as a potential head coaching hire for the Minnesota Vikings.
KFAN’s Paul Allen is reporting Cousins spent a great deal of time lobbying to the front office to hire his former quarterbacks coach from his time with the Washington Commanders. Allen used that tidbit of information as the basis for the argument that all of the supposed trade talks surrounding the Vikings 33-year-old quarterback are “fruitless.”
“Kirk put a lot of time into getting Kevin O’Connell hired and put a lot of time behind the scenes with those who hire,” said Allen, during an episode of Friday Feast! “Ok, so now there’s that. And O’Connell is glowing, to a certain extent, along with the new offensive coordinator [Wes Phillips], of Kirk. So, you lay those things out, right there.
“It would be a metaphorical 2×4 up your butt if they were to just trade him out of nowhere. ‘What’d you say here, what’d you mean here? What about that 25-minute conversation with the team president to get the guy hired?’ I mean, all of that plays into this, and that’s why I think [the trade talks] are fruitless.”
The one piece that seems to be missing in all of this is newly-hired general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who will obviously have his say in what happens as well.
But Allen does have a solid point.
If Cousins had a hand in O’Connell’s hiring, it would signal the team pairing their quarterback with the best head coaching fit. You don’t do that for a player you’re looking to kick out the door. But then again, Cousins’ contract is expected to count $45 million against the salary cap next season, which is the third-highest cap hit at the quarterback position.
It could cause problems if he comes to the negotiating table unwilling to take a team-friendly deal. He’s a savvy businessman that clearly knows he’d have some serious value on the open free agent market. There’s nothing in his past negotiations that would suggest he’d be willing to take a pay cut.
But people do change, right?
