Kirk Cousins may have landed in Las Vegas, but the script looks awfully familiar.
The former Minnesota Vikings quarterback is the favorite to open the season as the Raiders’ starter, and he did his part in the team’s final preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers on Thursday. Cousins finished 8-of-11 for 51 yards, while rookie Fernando Mendoza went 7-of-14 for 57 yards and an interception. Even so, head coach Klint Kubiak stopped short of naming anyone for the job as the Raiders get ready for their opener against the Miami Dolphins on September 13.
“I still don’t think we need to name anybody,” Kubiak said after the game via ESPN’s Ryan McFadden. “We have a lot to talk about at a lot of positions, so we want to watch the film and talk about everything as a staff.”
That leaves the door technically open, even if Cousins still looks like the likeliest choice. And that’s where the irony kicks in.
He left Minnesota because he didn’t want to be in a setup where the next quarterback was already being lined up behind him. Now he’s back in that exact sort of arrangement, only with a different uniform.
Cousins spent six seasons as the Vikings’ unquestioned starter after signing in 2018, piling up 23,265 passing yards, 171 touchdowns and 55 interceptions in 88 starts. Plenty of Vikings fans would still take that version of the position right now after seeing J.J.
McCarthy, Carson Wentz and Max Brosmer play quarterback last season. But Cousins didn’t head to Atlanta just because of the four-year, $180 million contract.
He also walked away because Minnesota had already started planning for life after him.
According to a 2024 article by ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, Kevin O’Connell wanted Cousins to return “more than anyone in the building.” The Vikings also told Cousins they were looking at a quarterback in the 2024 draft, while making it clear they did not want to rush that player into action. On paper, that still left Cousins with a path to remain the starter if he stayed.
But the Falcons offered more, including $100 million guaranteed. And Cousins viewed Minnesota’s offer as a “year-to-year” deal, meaning he understood exactly where things could be headed once the team decided his replacement was ready.
“Cousins had said publicly and privately that he wanted to finish his career in Minnesota, but he also made clear he wanted the structure of the new contract - the guaranteed money, in other words - to reflect that the Vikings wanted the same thing,” Seifert wrote.
"... Internally, the Vikings couldn’t make that commitment.
[Former Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah] wanted what he refers to as ‘optionality.’ There was too much value in a rookie quarterback’s contract, with its low salary cap impact to overlap it with a long-term veteran deal.”
Cousins went to Atlanta to avoid exactly that kind of pressure. Instead, the Falcons drafted Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick, and Cousins started 14 games before Penix took over during the 2024 season. Penix later made eight starts for Atlanta when Cousins suffered an ACL injury.
Now Cousins is in Las Vegas on what amounts to a two-year, $12.6 million contract after finally getting his release this offseason. The Raiders initially seemed set on letting Mendoza develop behind him, but Kubiak’s approach has changed that picture. He said he didn’t “want anyone to be too comfortable in their job,” and that has turned the quarterback situation into a real competition.
That possibility has already drawn attention from Brady Quinn, the former Cleveland Browns quarterback and current FOX NFL analyst, who sounded high on Mendoza after watching the rookie in preseason.
“I never do this, but I’ll just admit it - After watching the first preseason game, I was like ‘Oh you should probably be the starter,’” Quinn said during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show on Thursday.
“... I was like all right, why don’t we just go ahead and start the clock on Fernando Mendoza now?
Like, he’s the No. 1 overall pick. It’s why he’s in there.
I know a lot of times you want guys to sit and watch and learn. And especially with a guy like Kirk Cousins, who’s played in the league forever.
So he is a very pragmatic guy. So he’d be a great guy for young quarterbacks to learn from.
But I also think he can be that insurance policy for you, where if you put in Mendoza and he’s not coming along the way you’d like him to, you can also give him a bit of a break, or you also have that quarterback who can kind of be there to help guide him along through the entire process.”
Quinn’s perspective may come with its own baggage, but the broader point is hard to miss: Cousins keeps finding himself in the same quarterback lane, with a younger passer waiting to take over. At 38 this month, that may be how the rest of his career plays out before he eventually moves into broadcasting. And with career earnings of $321 million, he’ll be just fine.
Still, for a quarterback who left Minnesota to avoid this exact kind of ending, the final chapter feels awfully familiar.
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