Raiders Let Kirk Cousins Pick, and He Chose Vikings and Kevin O’Connell

• Kirk Cousins is a Minnesota Vikings quarterback again after a trade with the Las Vegas Raiders for a 2027 third-round pick, completed in the final hours before Tuesday’s 4 p.m. ET deadline, per CBS Sports.
• The Raiders gave Cousins the chance to decide whether to leave, Tom Pelissero said, and he told general manager John Spytek by midday Tuesday that he wanted to return to Minnesota.
• Cousins will wear No. 8 again, and the Vikings visit Green Bay on Sunday at Lambeau Field, where he tore his Achilles in 2023.

The Quarterback Who Made the Final Call on His Own Trade

“Kevin knows me. Kevin knows what I do well. Kevin knows what I don’t do well,” Cousins said on Wednesday. “Kevin knows what I can handle. Kevin knows what I can’t handle. And I think that helps.”

The Kevin in question is Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, and that familiarity is a big reason Cousins is back in purple. On deadline day, the Raiders let the 38-year-old decide whether to leave Las Vegas or stay with the team he had started the first nine games of the 2026 season for, as Pelissero told it. He chose Minnesota, and the Vikings sent Las Vegas the third-round pick to complete the deal.

One Call at Breakfast, an Answer by Midday

Cousins was eating breakfast with his Raiders teammates when Las Vegas coach Klint Kubiak called to tell him he was being traded. He talked it over with his family, his agent Mike McCartney and O’Connell. By midday Tuesday he had made up his mind, and he told Spytek he wanted to go back to Minnesota.

Fernando Mendoza was a factor. The Raiders had the 2026 No. 1 overall pick on their roster, and Cousins appeared to know it was only a matter of time before the franchise turned to Mendoza. His hold on the QB1 job looked short.

Cousins was a name in the deadline chatter, the same stretch in which the Eagles traded Jordan Davis to the Jaguars. He said he was not interested in going just anywhere.

“I’m not too interested in completely starting over,” Cousins said when asked about potentially being traded elsewhere. “I want to play with … you’ve got to play off reaction and instinct. And if you’re thinking, I don’t think you can quite be the player that you otherwise could be. So to me, it’s important to be able to be at a place that you feel you at least have the potential to do that.”

Cousins also described what a coach who knows him can do for him.

“Not just that [O’Connell] knows your strengths, but that he knows your weaknesses,” Cousins said. “And that as a result, he’s going to try to protect you and not have you do things that he knows, ‘You know what? That’s not how Kirk functions. That’s not his best chance of success.'”

“I think the fact he knows me well, the good about me and the bad about me, I think that should help us.”

Lambeau Field and the Unfinished Business

The reunion arrives with a test attached. O’Connell said the goal is for Cousins to start Sunday’s divisional game against the Packers and coach Matt LaFleur, but he wants to “be fair to Kirk and make sure he feels good about it going into Lambeau Field.”

The last game Cousins played in a Vikings uniform was at Lambeau Field in 2023, when he tore his Achilles and his season ended.

“To be back there wearing purple and gold, it has meaning,” Cousins said about returning to the spot of his injury. “But you have to go make it mean something with the way you play.”

Asked whether he feels he has unfinished business, Cousins said, “I think my whole career’s felt like unfinished business.”

What He Rejoins

Cousins spent six seasons in his first Vikings stint and won the NFC North with them in 2022. Over that stretch, among quarterbacks with at least 50 starts, he ranked second in the league in completion percentage (67.9%), fourth in passing yards (23,265) and third in passing touchdowns (171). Receiver Justin Jefferson averaged 98.9 receiving yards per game with him, an NFL record for a quarterback and receiver pairing over at least 50 games.

This season Cousins has thrown for 2,340 yards, 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions with a 64.1 completion percentage in his nine games with the Raiders. Among quarterbacks who changed teams midseason in NFL history, he has the most single-season passing touchdowns (20) and the most career passing touchdowns (318). The Vikings offense he joins is tied for the fewest touchdowns in the NFL this season, with 11.

He also needed a number. Rookie safety Jakobe Thomas had been wearing No. 8, and on Wednesday Cousins said he had not yet spoken with him.

“I need to circle back with him,” Cousins told reporters. “Haven’t gotten there. So we’ll have a conversation and I think Mike Parsons will help us, too, in the equipment room. But, yeah, I’ve got to talk to Jakobe for sure.”

When the topic came up again later, Cousins laughed and made his intentions clear: “I’m confident that Jakobe and I can have a healthy and mature conversation and figure this out.”

The team then announced that Cousins will wear No. 8, and Thomas switches to No. 6, the number he wore at Middle Tennessee State.

Sunday at Lambeau Field is the first test. O’Connell has not committed to Cousins starting it, and Cousins has said that being back there in purple and gold has meaning. The 15-year veteran, now 38, is back with O’Connell on the sideline and Jefferson as his top receiver.