Raiders To Trade QB Kirk Cousins Back To Vikings

Las Vegas will collect Minnesota’s 2027 third-round pick for the 38-year-old passer, who played six seasons with the Vikings before relocating to Atlanta and then Vegas. We heard last week the Vikings had done work on a possible quarterback trade, even after signing Kyler Murray in free agency, and Carson Wentz’s rough Monday-night outing ramped up the team’s desire to upgrade at the game’s premier position.

Minnesota is sending its own third-rounder, keeping Philadelphia’s (obtained in the Jonathan Greenard trade) in this Cousins swap, Pelissero adds. Talks indeed accelerated after the Vikes’ 23-6 home loss to the Bills on Monday night, per the Minnesota-based reporter. Cousins will join a Minnesota QB room housing Murray, Wentz and Max Brosmer. It is safe to say another change is coming after this move.

In addition to collecting a third-round pick, the Raiders will move off Cousins’ $10MM roster bonus — which is due in March 2027. The bonus is fully guaranteed, and while Cousins is on a veteran-minimum 2026 base salary, but the Raiders will end up paying him barely $500K for his services. The Vikings will foot the rest of the bill.

As the Vikings continued to see bottom-end quarterback play make a dynamic defense’s job harder, they will reach out to an old friend as a hopeful savior. Cousins’ first Minnesota tenure brought considerable scrutiny, largely because of the contracts the player managed to secure during his six-year stint, but he was playing at a high level in Kevin O’Connell’s system before he went down with an October 2023 Achilles tear. After mediocre years in Atlanta, Cousins has looked much better in Vegas (under ex-Vikings OC Klint Kubiak).

Never a mobile threat to begin with, Cousins is near the end of his career. He battled health issues in Atlanta but ended up starting more games during his two-year Falcons stay than Michael Penix Jr. did in that time. Now more than three years removed from the Achilles tear that led to the Vikings moving on in 2024, Cousins will be asked to save a season in a hotly contested NFC North. This will present an awkward situation for Murray, who had signed a vet-minimum deal in hopes of getting his career back on track. But the former No. 1 overall pick, who suffered a Week 1 concussion and is now battling a grade 2 hamstring strain, will be demoted to the QB2 level.

Cousins has 20 touchdown passes in nine Raiders games; that ranks second in the NFL (behind only Joe Burrow’s 23). Cousins sits 12th in QBR ; Murray is 27th. The well-traveled passer completed 64.5% of his passes — at 7.4 yards per attempt — with the Raiders, despite the team not having an enviable receiving situation (beyond Brock Bowers, that is). Working with Tre Tucker and former Vikes teammate Jalen Nailor, Cousins kept the Raiders competitive.

Like Kurt Warner midway through his Giants one-off, a No. 1 overall pick will replace a veteran for a middling team. While the Giants benched Warner in 2004, the Raiders will collect a prime asset as they prepare to move Mendoza into action. Unless the Raiders want to give Aidan O’Connell some starts to help finish Mendoza’s development from the sideline, he will encounter two of the NFL’s toughest defenses to open his QB1 career. The Raiders face the Seahawks in Week 10 and Broncos in Week 11.

Cousins still probably checks in as the NFC North’s worst starting quarterback, but considering the form Minnesota’s defense has shown, he could be a vital upgrade in O’Connell’s fifth season. Brian Flores’ defense ranks first in points allowed, second in yardage and third in EPA per play. The Vikings are 6-2 but 1-1 in a historically good NFC North — which features Caleb Williams, Jared Goff and Jordan Love piloting seven- or six-win operations — and Cousins will face the soaring Packers in his Vikings return. Cousins’ Achilles injury occurred at Lambeau Field just more than three days ago; his second Vikes stint will start in Wisconsin.

This will be welcome news for fantasy GMs rostering Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson. Murray and Wentz had struggled to take advantage of a quality pass-catching cadre. Jefferson slumped through a rough 2025, with the Vikings seeing alarmingly bad play from hopeful Cousins heir apparent J.J. McCarthy. Minnesota traded McCarthy to the Giants for a fifth-round pick, and the 2024 No. 10 overall draftee has shown signs of life in New York. If McCarthy is truly turning his career around as a Giant, O’Connell will have some explaining to do — given the other key QB development to take place post-Cousins.

The Vikings revived Sam Darnold’s career in 2024, bringing in the nomadic passer on a $10MM deal and seeing him earn original-ballot Pro Bowl honors and drive the Vikings to a 14-3 record. Darnold struggled at the end of that season, but the Vikings’ decision to pass on franchise-tagging him and let McCarthy take the reins proved wrong. Darnold earned original-ballot NFC Pro Bowl acclaim with the Seahawks, who he quarterbacked to a Super Bowl LX victory last season. The Vikings finished 9-8 and fired GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah in late January.

Issues between Cousins and Vikings brass on future guarantees paved the durable QB’s path to Georgia. He had been the longest-tenured Vikings QB1 since Tommy Kramer, not missing a start due to injury until midway through his sixth season. Cousins posted 35- and 33-touchdown pass seasons in 2020 and ’21, after leading Minnesota to the divisional round in 2019, but middling Vikes seasons led to Mike Zimmer and Kubiak’s ousters. O’Connell took over in 2022, and Cousins had the Vikings at 13-4 — albeit with a minus-1 point differential; QBR placed Cousins seventh in 2023 before his injury.

This is the most notable in-season quarterback trade since at least the 49ers’ 2017 Jimmy Garoppolo swap. The Raiders are on the seller end of a midyear QB deal 15 years after they missed on Carson Palmer. The Bengals were pivoting to Andy Dalton in 2011; the Raiders are now betting on a much higher-acclaimed prospect in Mendoza.

Daniel Jeremiah’s No. 1-ranked prospect in this class (via his NFL.com big board), Mendoza powered Indiana — historically a middling-at-best Big Ten outfit — to an unbeaten season that produced a stunning national championship. He parlayed that momentum into a No. 1 overall selection, with the Raiders not seriously entertaining offers for the one-and-done Hoosier sensation.

The Raiders started 3-0 but lost their next three; during that span, they began deliberating on the best point to insert Mendoza into their starting lineup. Mendoza was the first No. 1 overall QB draftee to begin his career as a backup since Baker Mayfield in 2018. Mayfield was in the Browns’ lineup by Week 4 of his rookie year. Mendoza has waited much longer, as most first-round QBs chosen at any point on Day 1 make their debuts by midseason. While exceptions like Patrick Mahomes and Jordan Love exist, Mendoza is on the later end for his debut.

Two-plus years after Cousins exited Minnesota — without wanting to leave — the player who once changed the QB market (via his three-year, $84MM deal in 2018) as a Viking will be back on a low-cost contract. The Vikings are vying for a playoff spot in one of the best divisions in NFL history. With the Seahawks and Rams — who entered the season as the NFL’s Super Bowl LXI favorites — at 5-4, a talented team will be the odd man out in the NFC.

The Vikings may not be acquiring a running back — they were among the Jonathan Taylor suitors, but that market will close without a trade — but they will hope the league’s second-oldest starting QB can make enough of a difference to elevate Flores’ defense into a difficult postseason matchup.