Vikings fans who want to forget the 1998 NFC Championship may have another reason to think about it.
The team that beat the Vikings on that January day in 1999 could be poised to steal quarterback Kirk Cousins.
We can't go into details at the moment. But we're getting very reliable indications that Cousins is seriously considering moving his family to Atlanta. Which clearly means he will sign with the Falcons.
The Falcons have always been the best alternative to the Vikings for Cousins, who will become an unrestricted free agent next Wednesday. And for good reason. His wife, Julie, grew up in nearby Alpharetta, Georgia. Her parents still live there.
The Vikings have, by all appearances, decided they want to keep Cousins, but only at their price. They seem to think he won't get a better offer elsewhere. If he does, they seem content to let him go.
Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell said BFT Live On Tuesday (video attached) he unequivocally wanted his cousins back. And we believe him. Do others in the organization, from GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to owners Mark and Zygi Wilf, feel the same way?
The counter is supposed to be that Cousins is 35 and recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon. Also, in six years with the Vikings, the team only made the playoffs twice. (They likely would have made it to 2023, if not for his injury.)
The attraction for Cousins, post-contract, will be the presence of a plethora of players with great skills — and the fact that the NFC South is currently weaker than the NFC North.
The Vikings still have six days of exclusive negotiating rights with Cousins. If they want to keep him, they can make an offer he won't refuse.
Of course, it may be too late for that. If the Falcons gave enough of an indication last week to Cousins' agent, Mike McCartney, about what they'd like to do, Cousins may have already decided to leave. And he may not be interested in the Vikings doing now what they could have done before the Falcons caught his attention.
The Falcons were previously linked to a trade with the Bears for quarterback Justin Fields. In the end, this was probably just a misdirection, intended to allow them to stymie Cousins while the Vikings assumed no one else would make him a better offer than any the Vikings made.
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