There was speculation a year ago at this time whether Kirk Cousins would be back with the Vikings in 2022. Rick Spielman, who had signed Cousins to a rich free agent contract in 2018, had been fired as general manager and there was a feeling that a new GM and coach might want to go in a different direction.
That didn’t happen and first-year coach Kevin O’Connell won 13 games in his first season as Vikings’ coach in part because of Cousins’ regular-season success. Cousins also signed a one-year contract extension last March that almost certainly will put him under center with the Vikings in 2023.
But what is the plan beyond that?
The Vikings could sign Cousins to another extension in March, but at some point general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell have to start planning for the future. Cousins will be 35 in March and will carry a $36.3 million salary cap hit in 2023.
While the draft is an option, the Vikings also could look to a young quarterback who has yet to get a chance. That would be Marshall, Minn.-native Trey Lance, whom the San Francisco 49ers made the third-overall pick in the 2021 draft.
Here’s why Lance exploring the Lance option makes sense for the Vikings:
Why the 49ers would be looking to move Lance
The 49ers sent three first-round picks and a 2022 third-round selection to Miami to leap nine spots in order to draft the quarterback they saw as the successor to Jimmy Garoppolo.
Lance played in six games and started only two as a rookie, but was expected to be the 49ers’ starter when training camp opened last summer. He lasted two games into the regular season before breaking his right ankle while scrambling against the Seattle Seahawks. Garoppolo moved into the starting role and then was replaced by 2022 seventh-round pick Brock Purdy after he was injured.
Purdy has helped guide the 49ers to the NFC title game on Sunday in Philadelphia and longtime NFL reporter Michael Silver, who writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, recently reported the 49ers might not get more than a third-round pick in return for Lance based on what NFL executives are telling him.
“Even if the Niners are receptive to potential trade offers for Lance after the season, they won’t come close to recouping that haul. Based on my conversations with several teams’ general managers (and other high- ranking front-office executives), Lance would be unlikely to net much more than a third- round selection, though it’s possible there’s a team out there motivated to give more.”
The other important part of Silver’s report was that the 49ers see Purdy as their quarterback of the future. Purdy is 7-0 as a starter and has won two postseason games. Lance will be entering his third season in 2023, having made only four starts and thrown 102 passes.
Keeping him in a backup role, while Purdy gets all the first-team work in training camp, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
What the Vikings might offer in a trade
Considering how much the 49ers gave up to draft Lance, it seems difficult to imagine they would accept only a third-round pick in return for him. If they would, the Vikings should pounce.
But even if the Vikings had to give up a second-round pick, or a third and fourth, Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell shouldn’t dismiss this opportunity.
The chance Lance could be moved goes beyond Purdy’s play. Yes, Purdy has been very good but he was the last pick in the draft and certainly the 49ers have to have some concern about whether what they are seeing now will carry over into next season.
But it’s not as if Lance is a veteran who can step right in for Purdy if he struggles. San Francisco is in the NFC title game for the third time in the past four years, and failing to win the Super Bowl will create pressure to keep that window open next season.
Lance started 17 of the 19 games he appeared in at North Dakota State, but played in only one game in 2020 because of the pandemic. That means he has been in only nine games over the past three seasons.
Purdy, who played college football at Iowa State and will carry a salary-cap hit of $889,253 next season, might not have entered the NFL with the fanfare that Lance did, but so far he’s proven far more.
Clock is ticking on Lance's contract
There’s another important factor on why the 49ers need to make a decision on Lance. A big part of the reason to identify and select a quarterback in the first round is because that then ties him to the team at a very reasonable rate for four years. A fifth-year option is included, if it’s a first-round pick.
Lance’s base salary next season will be only $940,000 and his cap hit $3.76 million. In 2024, his base salary will increase to $1.055 million with a cap hit of $5.31 million. That’s a bargain.
But Lance’s second contract will be determined by how he plays during this deal and right now there’s no track record from which to proceed. As far as the fifth-year option goes that gets far more complicated.
Last offseason, the Arizona Cardinals picked up Kyler Murray’s fifth-year option that was set to pay him a fully-guaranteed $29.7 million in 2023 before the sides negotiated a five-year extension that included $160 million in guarantees.
The way things have worked out in San Francisco, Lance might not start another game before his fourth season and his value would go down with each game he stands on the sideline.
Niners general manager John Lynch might not want to take a discount price for Lance, but he also doesn’t want Lance walking away for nothing after 2024.
The downside for San Francisco is that if Lance is traded, the 49ers will have to eat $11-plus million in dead money of a signing bonus proration. That is another reason why Lynch likely would be looking for more than one third-round pick.
Why the Vikings are a good landing spot
Ultimately, O’Connell would be the most important voice in giving the go-ahead to pursue Lance.
One of the big reasons O’Connell was hired away as the offensive coordinator from the 2021 Super Bowl champion Rams was because of his background as a college and (briefly) NFL quarterback. O’Connell is being counted on to do what Spielman couldn’t — identify a young franchise quarterback for the Vikings.
Lance will be 23 in May and could be the perfect guy to spend next season behind Cousins and then take over as the starter in 2024. Is it ideal from a contract standpoint? No. But attempting to draft a quarterback comes with great risk, or at a significant price, if a team tries to move up in the first round.
Lance has risk but there also are knowns and positives. He has spent two years learning the offensive system of 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan. Shanahan, whose father, Mike, won two Super Bowls as coach of the Broncos, is part of the Shanahan coaching tree that includes O’Connell.
There is respect between O’Connell and Kyle Shanahan and also a shared thought process on quarterback play. It helps that the Vikings and 49ers’ held two joint training camp practices at TCO Performance Center last summer that gave O’Connell a long look at Lance that he ordinarily wouldn’t have been able to get.
Maybe O’Connell decided he didn’t like Lance and the flaws that some see in his mechanics, but there also is a chance he saw a 6-foot-4, 224-pound QB that he thinks he can be the starter he wants long term.
Assuming Lance’s recovery has gone well, he had a second surgery in December to remove hardware inserted during the first procedure to stabilize his ankle, he would give an offense the type of mobility that Cousins doesn’t.
Lance almost certainly will need to be smarter when he does run, but having the mobility to move the pocket is a precious tool.
Many think Lance’s mechanics- including a dip when he throws and an elongated motion- are deal-breakers. But one has to think Shanahan has done plenty of work to refine Lance’s throwing motion, and spending a season working with O’Connell, and serving as the quarterback in waiting behind Cousins, could set up Lance for success playing in his home state.
