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Vikings followers who would like to overlook the 1998 NFC Championship might need another excuse to consider it.
The workforce that beat the Vikings that day in January 1999 could possibly be poised to pilfer quarterback Kirk Cousins.
We will’t get into the specifics, for now. However we’re getting very credible indications that Cousins is critically contemplating shifting his household to Atlanta. Which might imply, clearly, that he’d be signing with the Falcons.
The Falcons have all the time been the highest different to the Vikings for Cousins, who turns into an unrestricted free agent subsequent Wednesday. And for good cause. His spouse, Julie, grew up in close by Alpharetta, Georgia. Her mother and father nonetheless stay there.
The Vikings have, by all appearances, determined they need to hold Cousins, however solely at their worth. They appear to assume he received’t get a greater supply elsewhere. If he does, they appear to be content material to let him go.
Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell instructed PFT Dwell on Tuesday (the video is connected) that he completely, unequivocally needs Cousins again. And we imagine him. Do others within the group, from G.M. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to house owners Mark and Zygi Wilf, really feel the identical method?
The counter could be, presumably, that Cousins is 35 years outdated, and that he’s recovering from a torn Achilles tendon. Additionally, in six years with the Vikings, the workforce has made the playoffs solely twice. (They probably would have made it in 2023, however for his damage.)
The attraction for Cousins, past the contract, could be a plethora of nice skill-position gamers — and the truth that the NFC South is at the moment weaker than the NFC North.
The Vikings nonetheless have six days of unique negotiating rights with Cousins. In the event that they need to hold him, they may make a suggestion he received’t refuse.
In fact, it is perhaps too late for that. If the Falcons made sufficient of a sign final week to Cousins’s agent, Mike McCartney, as to what they’re keen to do, Cousins would possibly have already got determined to go. And he won’t have an interest within the Vikings doing now what they may have accomplished earlier than the Falcons bought his consideration.
The Falcons beforehand had been linked to a commerce with the Bears for quarterback Justin Fields. Finally, which may have simply been a misdirection, geared toward probably letting them snag Cousins whereas the Vikings assumed nobody else would make him a greater supply than regardless of the Vikings have made.
