Raiders Veteran QB Mentioned In Minnesota Trade Rumors

The Las Vegas Raiders have done an excellent job of handling the transition from veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins to rookie Fernando Mendoza, especially since the storyline has come wtih some unexpected twists and turns. 

Cousins has played surprisingly well, and the Raiders are currently 4-4 going into Sunday’s contest against San Francisco 49ers, and the Raiders have been one of the surprise teams of the NFL season so far. 

But there’s another twist happening with this now, and it’s all about Cousins. He’s increased his trade value enormously by leading the Raiders to a surprising number of wins, and his name is turning up in some unexpected rumors. 

Specifically, some of those involve the Minnesota Vikings. Minnesota instituted what Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk called a “soft benching” of Murray, who has a hamstring injury that Florio said “wouldn’t have kept him from playing if the Vikings had beaten the Lions,” which gave backup Carson Wentz a chance to beat the Buffalo Bills on Monday night. 

Wentz now has a chance keep the job for the rest of a four-game gauntlet that has Minnesota also playing the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers. 

If he fails -- and success here is unlikely at best -- the Vikings may “mobilize,” to use Florio’s word. Quarterback Daniel Jones of the Indianapolis Colts could be a possibility, with Jones undoubtedly disappointed at the Colts’ ongoing fire sale. 

This is where Cousins is getting mentioned, and there are a couple of points here that may be relevant. Jones would be a lot cheaper to acquire than Cousins, especially since the Colts may already be planning to cut Jones to save about $10 million of his $33.49 million salary becomes fully guaranteed. 

There’s one problem with all this. Cousins has a close relationship with coach Klint Kubiak, and there hasn’t even been a vague sign of tension between the two, as they’ve been on the same page in lockstep since Cousins took the reins.

But that’s only one part of the story. Kubiak likes winning games, and Cousins continues to represent his best chance to do that. While it is true that Cousins would draw a haul when it comes to draft capital, trading him at this juncture would be the equivalent of tanking the Raiders season, and Kubiak clearly has no intention of doing that. 

It’s fun to throw names around in this sort of thing, but it tends to work better when there’s some viability with both teams involved in a prospective trade, and right now that’s not the case at all with the Raiders and Cousins.