When Kirk Cousins took a bad step in the fourth quarter of Sunday's win over Green Bay, leading to a season-ending torn Achilles, it threw one of the most stable 2023 quarterback situations in the league into one of the least stable.
Quarterback chaos? That's been the formula for great Vikings seasons
The assumption might be that the Vikings' season is in peril because of Kirk Cousins' season-ending injury. But history suggests the fun and winning could just be beginning.
October 31, 2023 at 5:36PM
The immediate assumption was that the Vikings' season, after they had rallied from a 1-4 start to even their record at 4-4, was at best in potential danger and at worst in clear trouble.
That might prove to be the case. But Vikings history also offers us a strangely different perspective: When things have been chaotic at quarterback for the Vikings and they have had to deviate from the script, they have actually produced some of the most successful seasons in their last four decades.
So whether it's newly acquired Joshua Dobbs, rookie Jaren Hall or veteran Nick Mullens (or maybe all three!) taking snaps the rest of the way — possibilities Andrew Krammer and I talked about on Tuesday's Daily Delivery podcast — hope is hardly lost at this moment.
Consider these four seasons, which happen to be four of the last five times the Vikings reached the NFC title game:
1987: Vikings fans of a certain age remember the old days, when it seemed uncertain from snap to snap whether Wade Wilson, Tommy Kramer or some other other challenger would be the team's quarterback. In 1987, Wilson started seven regular-season games, Kramer started five and replacement Tony Adams started three during the strike. It added up to an 8-7 season (really 8-4 minus the 0-3 with replacement players), before Wilson led them to two upset playoff wins and a near-miss loss to Washington in the NFC title game.
1998: Most people remember Randall Cunningham slinging deep passes to Randy Moss on the way to a 15-1 record. Fewer people remember that Cunningham started that season as the backup to Brad Johnson, and that Cunningham's star turn only came because Johnson was injured in Week 2.
2009: Yeah, I did an entire oral history on this. But basically by mid-August of that year it looked like Sage Rosenfels and Tarvaris Jackson were battling for the QB job. But then a months-long flirtation with Brett Favre threw everything into chaos when he finally committed, showed up at Vikings headquarters, and led them within one fateful play of the Super Bowl.
2017: Sam Bradford hurt his knee early in the season. Teddy Bridgewater was still coming back from his awful 2016 training camp injury. So in stepped journeyman Case Keenum, who delivered a career season to rescue the Vikings — authoring a trip to the NFC title game on the heels of the Minneapolis Miracle.
There are obvious differences between those seasons and this one, but there is also a chance 2023 becomes the next chapter in a strange Vikings history.
Here are four more things to know today:
*Frustrated Wolves fans have already begun to list the chief people they are going to blame when things go wrong this season — as they have already in a 1-2 start that included blowing a 21-point lead at Atlanta on Monday. They are, in order: head coach Chris Finch, starting big man Karl-Anthony Towns and backup guard Shake Milton.
*As my car slid down the road this morning, I tried to imagine if the Twins were trying to host World Series games this week.
*Kirk Cousins' injury Sunday overshadowed many things, including this: The Packers are awful right now, and Jordan Love looks very shaky.
*James Harden got his trade to the Clippers. I'm sure he's happy, but I'm not sure if we should measure the duration of his expected continued happiness in days, weeks or months.
