First, to be clear: Unless some sort of obvious upgrade presented itself, I don't think there's even a chance the Vikings will trade Kirk Cousins this offseason. That's more of an end-game move if the entire thing they're trying to build falls apart, not a shift-on-the-fly sort of maneuver.
And I don't even think the Vikings should attempt to trade Cousins. He's a durable, above-average QB who has landed in the top 10 of Pro Football Focus' grades each of the past two seasons here. Out of offense, defense and special teams, the offense was by far the biggest bright spot for the Vikings in a disappointing 7-9 season in 2021. While history tells us it is tough to win a Super Bowl with a quarterback like Cousins occupying so much cap space, that is the path the Vikings have chosen.
But two things can be true at the same time: There can be little or no chance Cousins will be traded or should be traded ... and yet it will still be the thing that more Vikings fans talk about and wish for more than anything else.
This was discussed some on the latest Access Vikings podcast, which invariably featured reader questions about Cousins and disgruntled Texans QB Deshaun Watson — and whether there was any way the Vikings should shed Cousins and add Watson.
The answer is that it is somewhat plausible financially, since Watson has a reasonable cap number in 2021 — but that it is implausible in about 17 other ways.
I said on the podcast, even gaming out one scenario: Why would a team that wanted to trade for a quarterback target Cousins instead of Watson, thereby allowing the Vikings to go after Watson?
And that was before we learned that Matthew Stafford and the Lions are planning to part ways. Stafford is quite similar to Cousins in age and numbers.
It was before Aaron Rodgers and the Packers lost in the NFC title game, leaving Rodgers to be vague about his future and stirring thoughts that his days in Green Bay could be coming to an end.
