The Minnesota Vikings traded a 2027 third-round pick to the Las Vegas Raiders for Kirk Cousins right before the 4 pm ET trade deadline on Nov. 10. Nonetheless, the Vikings weren’t focusing just on Cousins as they were looking at every situation to trade for a QB.
After Carson Wentz’s performance against the Buffalo Bills in Week 10 and Kyler Murray’s inability to start moving the Vikings’ offense in a positive direction, it was clear that Minnesota needed to trade for a QB, eventually reuniting with Cousins.
However, NFL insider Jordan Schultz reported on Nov. 10, citing multiple league sources, that Minnesota inquired about Justin Herbert, Daniel Jones, and Geno Smith before striking a deal with Las Vegas for Cousins.
As a result, WFAN’s Chris McMonigle did defend the New York Jets a little bit for not trading Smith, noting that Cousins’s knowledge of the Vikings offense probably made him more valuable to Minnesota than Smith.
Nonetheless, McMonigle noted that he would have liked for New York to take the third-round pick if that’s what was on the table.
“I do think Kirk Cousins has more value specifically to the Vikings than anywhere else because of his success and his familiarity with the coach and the offense,” McMonigle said in a Nov. 10 video from WFAN. “I think he probably is worth more than Geno Smith to the Vikings.
“To anybody else, you could say they’re on par. I don’t know if they’d be willing to trade a third-round pick for Geno Smith, but if they offered the same package, a third-round pick, I think the Jets were stupid to say no.”
Craig Carton on Jets’ Reason for Keeping Geno Smith
Meanwhile, McMonigle’s co-host Craig Carton called out the Jets for not striking a deal with the Vikings for Smith that could’ve netted them a third-round pick.
“The Vikings called the Jets to ask what the asking price would be to trade for Geno Smith [and] they might have taken Kirk Cousins anyway, but they called the Jets, and the Jets said, paraphrasing here, he’s untouchable,” Carton said in a Nov. 10 video from WFAN. “He’s too important to the development of our young players.”
Moreover, Carton used a sarcastic tone to call out the Jets’ reason for keeping Smith and not going further in talks with the Vikings for a trade involving the veteran QB.
“It might have been, ‘Hey, what do you want for Geno Smith?’ And the answer was nothing,” Carton added. “He’s too important to the development of [Kenyon] Sadiq. Of course, we never throw him the football, but he’s very important. Or it’s, ‘We take one week on, one week off.'”
Russell Wilson on Vikings Trading for Kirk Cousins
With Cousins back in Minnesota for a second stint, former NFL QB Russell Wilson applauded the Vikings’ aggressiveness to bolster the position after their back-to-back losses.
“Kirk’s been playing great all year,” Wilson said during a Nov. 10 appearance on “CBS Sports HQ.” “You think about a guy who had some struggles in Atlanta but overcame them and came back in an amazing way. To me, he’s kind of the comeback player of the year in Kirk O’Chains because of what he’s been able to do, stepping up and playing great for the Raiders.
“But now he’s got a plethora of playmakers around him, and he’s got KOC calling the plays. That marriage, that reunion, bringing him back, you could see it on KOC’s face last night, too. He’s thinking, ‘Man, we have to do something. This isn’t good enough.'”
Jets Called Out Over Geno Smith Trade Stance After Vikings Inquired