The Vikings basically had a line they weren’t willing to cross in negotiations with Cousins.Three days after it was first reported that Kirk Cousins would be signing a four-year, $180 million deal with the Falcons, Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O’Connell spoke to the media and addressed the departure of their starting quarterback for the first time.
What they said is consistent with what we already knew about how things went down. The Vikings wanted Cousins back, but it had to be on terms that they were comfortable with. They made their offer — a multi-year offer that included guaranteed money in year two, according to The Athletic — and stuck to it. Ultimately, the Falcons came in with a better offer and lured him away. At his introductory presser in Atlanta on Wednesday, Cousins said things had become “year-to-year” with the Vikings recently, and that he believes this commitment from the Falcons will allow him to retire there if he plays the way he expects to play.
Simply put, the Vikings felt they had to stick to their plan, while the Falcons were comfortable making an offer that better aligned with what Cousins was looking for. Atlanta clearly believes that it’s a position to contend for a championship with Cousins at the helm of a loaded offense.
“This sport isn’t such where you can just say, on a binary basis, I want that player,” Adofo-Mensah said. “I think we’ve been very clear since we’ve gotten here that we like Kirk Cousins. We’ve been very clear that we think we could win a Super Bowl with Kirk Cousins. But we have a sport that only gives you a certain number of draft picks, a salary cap, competition versus other teams. It’s a resource-constrained thing, so we don’t get the chance to just say, binary, yes or no. There has to be planning and strategy involved.
