Vikings’ Cousins playing winning football on a losing team

Lost in the Minnesota Vikings’ sluggish start to the 2021 season has been the stellar play of their quarterback Kirk Cousins.

Indeed, the 10th year veteran has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal season for the purple and white, losers of three of their four first games, and it may serve to punch the 33-year-old team captain’s ticket out of town and to a team in need of a steady hand under center.

As of early October, Cousins’ stats have placed him among the top signal callers in the league, connecting on 108 of

157 passes (a 68.8 completion percentage) for 1,121 yards and nine touchdowns against only one interception, giving him a quarterback rating of 105.6.

But what’s not reflected in the numbers is the fact that Cousins had the Vikings in position to win two of those contests. However, late-game mistakes in Weeks 1 and 2 against Cincinnati and Arizona undermined what had been otherwise solid team performances. So the Vikings could just as easily have started the season 3-1 instead of 1-3.

Cousins was supposed to be the final piece to a Super

Bowl team when the Vikings signed him in 2018 but that hasn’t happened. With his contract due to expire at the end of 2022, Cousins may find himself traded to a contender after the 2021 season, especially if the team continues to lose – and if it can fetch a nice price for a quarterback still at the top of his game.

Cousins and the Vikings can be seen in action Sunday, Oct. 31, when they host the Dallas Cowboys in a Sunday Night Football telecast on NBC.