Minnesota Vikings

Vikings linebacker Blake Cashman may not be available for Sunday’s showdown with the Packers.

Cashman would have missed practice on Wednesday because he is in the league’s concussion protocol. The Vikings issued an estimated injury report because they played on Monday night.

Cashman will have to progress through that protocol quickly if he’s going to have a shot of getting on the field in Green Bay this weekend.

Tight end T.J. Hockenson (wrist, chest) also would have missed practice on Wednesday. Hockenson played 39 of the team’s 48 offensive snaps in Monday night’s loss to Buffalo.

Defensive lineman Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins (ankle), wide receiver Jauan Jennings (calf), quarterback Kyler Murray (hamstring), and linebacker Kyle Van Noy (calf) were the other Vikings listed as out of practice. Safety Jay Ward (knee) and quarterback Carson Wentz (ankle) were listed as limited participants.

Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins made his official return to the team on Wednesday. He still doesn’t officially have a number.

Has he spoken to rookie safety Jakobe Thomas, who currently wears No. 8?

“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 issue came up again later, Cousins laughed — while also making his intentions clear: “I’m confident that Jakobe and I can have a healthy and mature conversation and figure this out.”

It’s hard to imagine Thomas standing in Cousins’s way. There are too many Vikings fans who still have No. 8 jerseys that will become moot if Cousins isn’t wearing it.

However it goes, it would be a shock if Cousins isn’t wearing No. 8 on Sunday at Lambeau Field.

The Vikings made Kyler Murray their quarterback choice to open the 2026 season, but it didn’t take long for their plans to go awry.

Murray was concussed early in the season opener, missed Week 2 and then led an underwhelming offense to a 4-1 record before suffering a hamstring injury in Week 8. The Vikings offense got even worse with Carson Wentz in Monday night’s loss to the Bills, which led the team to trade for Kirk Cousins on Tuesday.

Head coach Kevin O’Connell hasn’t committed to starting Cousins against the Packers this weekend, but it’s why the deal was made and Murray isn’t currently an option because he remained out of practice with a hamstring injury on Wednesday. Once Murray is healthy, he’ll be slated for a backup role as O’Connell said he doesn’t believe “you can have a competition during the season” and that his hope is that Murray is available if and when the Vikings have to pivot again.

“The reality is what it is,” O’Connell said. “It’s one of those things where I think he appreciated hearing about it before the transaction took place, but at the same time, he knows I believe in him. I believe in Kyler, just like I believe in Carson and I believe in Max [Brosmer]. I want him to get healthy and get back to work because you just never know. We do not hold the cards in how this will go from a health standpoint or anything like that with anybody on our team.”

O’Connell said that he told Murray that he knows it has been a “less than ideal” series of events, but that underscores the possibility that the Vikings will have to turn back to him with an important game on the line at some point later this year.

Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons had limited work in Wednesday’s practice. He is listed with an illness in addition to the knee injury.

Parsons is in the second week of his 21-day return-to-practice window as he works his way back from the torn ACL that ended his 2025 season in December. He was limited in all three practices last week.

The plan is for him to get team work this week.

The Packers practiced without safety Javon Bullard (ankle/knee), linebacker Zaire Franklin (shin), offensive lineman Sean Rhyan (ankle), edge rusher Lukas Van Ness (back) and tight end Josh Whyle (concussion).

Offensive guard Aaron Banks (knee/hip), running back Chris Brooks (ankle), offensive lineman Travis Glover (knee), linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper (illness), wide receiver Skyy Moore (ankle), kicker Trey Smack (right calf), wide receiver Savion Williams (groin) and offensive guard Kevin Zeitler (ankle) were limited.

On Tuesday, the Vikings worked the phones and ultimately found a new starting quarterback in Kirk Cousins. On Wednesday, the work began to get Cousins up to speed.

Although G.M. Nolan Teasley deferred to coach Kevin O’Connell as to the new depth chart with Cousins in the room, Teasley also stated the obvious in a press conference with reporters.

“We . . . didn’t acquire Kirk to not play,” Teasley said.

Teasley pointed to various factors that drew the Vikings to a reunion with Cousins, including his familiarity with the offense, the organization, and the coaching staff. Teasley also noted Cousins’s “live arm,” touch, placement, and accuracy.

Teasley also tried to push back against the perception (if not reality) that the Monday night disaster against the Bills prompted a Tuesday fire drill that ended with the trade for Cousins.

“I would tell you that it didn’t,” Teasley said regarding the impact of the Week 9 game on the outcome. “We’ve been looking for ways to improve this football team, again, for weeks. And we just followed the process. It was a wide net that we were casting. And ultimately this is what we landed on, and this was the right move for this point in time.”

Right, but it’s hard not to make the connection between Monday night’s showing and the Tuesday trade deadline. Indeed, if the trade deadline hadn’t previously been shifted from the Tuesday after Week 8 to the Tuesday after Week 9, the window may have closed before the Vikings realized how badly they needed to jump through it.

At the end of the day, it’s clear that the Vikings felt compelled to get the most out of what the team currently has.

“This roster has earned the right to explore the potential to maximize where we can take this thing,” Teasley said.

Could Cousins stay with the Vikings beyond the current season?

“There’s always potential for that, but this is really about 2026.” Teasley said. “And that’s where we’re focused. . . . When that time comes we’ll address it.”

For now, they addressed getting more out of the side of the ball that’s struggling mightily.

“We still believe in the potential of the offense,” Teasley said. “There’s a lot of really talented players over there. So this is about doing what’s best for the Vikings in totality.”

Teasley opted not to engage in a hypothetical discussion as to how Cousins impacts the team’s ceiling.

“This is a really good football team,” Teasley said. “We’re 6-2 through eight games, and we just acquired a really good football player.”

While Teasley won’t address hypotheticals, others will. Without Cousins, the Vikings were destined to implode. They wouldn’t have won enough games to make it to the playoffs.

Now? They’re in position to take the NFC North — and possibly to win a playoff game or two. If, as it appears, the trade rejuvenates the defense and elevates the offense, the Vikings will become one of the most balanced teams in the league.

Which will give them an opportunity to navigate what will be the meat grinder of the looming NFC playoff tree.

The Vikings traded a third-round pick for Kirk Cousins on Tuesday because they need to improve their quarterback play, but head coach Kevin O’Connell stopped short of saying that Cousins will jump immediately into the lineup this week.

Cousins is familiar with O’Connell’s offense because of his previous stint playing for him with the Vikings and O’Connell said on Wednesday that will help speed up the acclimation process. He added that there are some differences from when Cousins was last with the team in 2023 and that he wants “to be fair to Kirk and make sure he feels good about it,” but that “we acquired Kirk to join a 6-2 football team and play.”

“I do think it’s still too early to commit wholeheartedly to what the plan on Sunday looks like, but I will say [I’m] excited about the opportunity of spending every minute we can between now and then to get him comfortable and allow him to play for us this Sunday,” O’Connell said.

The Packers are surely preparing for Cousins to be Minnesota’s quarterback on Sunday and it would be a surprise if anyone else is under center, but everyone will have to wait a little longer for confirmation of the Vikings’ plan.

Packers head coach Matt LaFleur was Kirk Cousins’ position coach when the quarterback came into the league.

Now the two are set to match up on opposite sidelines again after the Raiders traded Cousins to the Vikings on Tuesday.

LaFleur told reporters in his Wednesday press conference that he’s expecting Cousins to start Sunday’s matchup between Minnesota and Green Bay.

“Yeah, he’ll be out there. He’ll be starting. Fairly confident in that,” LaFleur said. “Obviously, he’s got familiarity with their system. Even if he didn’t, he’s a really intelligent guy and I think he’s been playing at a high level.”

What did make LaFleur raise an eyebrow was the trade compensation, as Minnesota sent a third-round pick to Las Vegas for Cousins.

“I was surprised they didn’t get more for him, quite honestly — I was shocked what they traded him for,” LaFleur said. “It was mind-blowing to me.”

While Cousins played under Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell in 2023 and 2024, LaFleur said what Cousins has been doing with the Raiders this year still has relevance when putting together this week’s game plan.

“You definitely watch some of that, see what he’s had success with, what he’s comfortable with,” LaFleur said. “Obviously, he’s got a long track record with that offense with all those years in Minnesota with Kevin. And [there are still] a lot of the key pieces that were there with him.”

In nine games for the Raiders this year, Cousins completed 64.1 percent of his passes for 2,340 yards with 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

Did the Raiders get enough for Kirk Cousins?

Some will say no, because the Vikings were desperate to find a quarterback after Monday night’s disastrous performance from Carson Wentz. They clearly have no faith in Kyler Murray, and they weren’t ready to hand the reins to Max Brosmer. The Raiders had leverage, and it’s fair to wonder whether they maximized.

But there’s another reality to consider. The Vikings were casting a wide net. They apparently had other options. So if the Raiders had tried to put their thumb on the scale, the Vikings would have gone to a different deli — and the Raiders would have gotten nothing.

They were obviously going to pivot from Cousins to Fernando Mendoza at some point. Possibly, after the Week 13 bye against the Chargers. So they accelerated the plan and got something when they otherwise would have gotten nothing.

Along the way, they avoided the $10 million guaranteed 2027 roster bonus that was engineered to stick the Falcons with $8.7 million of Cousins’s $10 million pay for 2026. In the end, the Raiders paid half of Cousins’s $1.3 million base salary.

Setting aside the fact that they got nine games out of Cousins (including four wins) and a great mentor for Mendoza, the Raiders ultimately bought a third-round pick for $650,000.

In 2017, the Browns bought a second-round pick from the Texans for $16 million, in the form of taking on Brock Osweiler’s remaining salary guarantee under a contract Houston quickly regretted. If a second-round pick was worth $16 million then, how much is a third-round pick worth now?

Whatever it is, it’s more than $650,000.

So it was a win for the Raiders. And it was a win for the Vikings.

It also was a win for Cousins, who’ll now be the starter for the rest of the season in Minnesota, without having to worry about getting benched for Murray, Wentz, or Brosmer.

Kirk Cousins is back in Minnesota. But he’s not back in No. 8. Yet.

The official online roster shows Cousins with no assigned number, for now. The player currently in No. 8 is safety Jakobe Thomas, a third-round pick in the 2026 draft.

It’s likely that Thomas — who hasn’t played in a 2026 regular-season game — will surrender the number to Cousins. Possibly for an appropriate contribution to the charity of Thomas’s choice. Or possibly after Cousins pulls a Jared Verse and shows up for practice on Wednesday wearing No. 8.

There’s another possibility, which is as intriguing as it is unlikely. Given that Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton, who like Cousins had a second stint as Minnesota’s starter, is very enthused by the return of Cousins, Tarkenton could offer to temporarily unretire No. 10.

I know. I know. I’ve made clear my position that retired numbers shouldn’t be unretired. More specifically, future players shouldn’t initiate the request, since it puts the player for whom the number was retired in a no-win spot. But if the idea comes from the player who holds the permanent rights to the number, that’s different.

It’s still unlikely. And it would look strange to see Cousins in No. 10. So it makes sense for him to get back in No. 8, and for Thomas to pick one of the other available numbers, like No. 9 (which he wore during his season at Tennessee) or No. 6 (which he wore before that at Middle Tennessee State).

On Monday night, I was explaining to my wife the bizarre situation in Minnesota, where a championship-caliber defense has been paired with an offense that would have trouble scoring a touchdown in the lower divisions of college football.

She said, “Is Fran Tarkenton still around?”

Actually, he is. And the end result to the expedited search came from the Tarkenton playbook: The Vikings brought back a former Vikings quarterback in trading with the Raiders for Kirk Cousins.

On Tuesday, Tarkenton gushed about the return of Cousins. “I think it’s the greatest thing that could have happened to us,” Tarkenton told Darren Wolfson of KSTP. “We were lost. We were winning on defense. We had no offense. We had no quarterback. And now we’ve got Kirk coming back, who is having a great year. He’s a great player. He’s a better person than player. Our team should lift up now. And we’re in the best division in football. Our defense has kept us in the hunt.

“And having Kirk — I cannot tell you how happy I am for the Vikings, for the fans, for the Wilfs, and for all the players and the old-timers like myself. We’ve got a chance with Kirk Cousins.”

Tarkenton spent 1961 through 1966 with the Vikings before returning from 1972 through 1978. And, as it turns out, his comments about Cousins weren’t the only news he made this week.

Tarkenton apparently earned a mere $1.2 million during his entire 18-year NFL career. But that was just the starting point. He has amassed enough of a fortune in the business world to recently buy — at age 86 — a $51.89 million home in Palm Beach.

Tarkenton blazed the trail for today’s former quarterbacks who work even harder in retirement. He was the first NFL player to host Saturday Night Live, and his TV career included a co-hosting gig on That’s Incredible and a four-year stint in the Monday Night Football booth.

The big money came in the business world, specifically computer software. He also has made many millions as an early investor in Apple.

And, if you watch the clip, you’ll see that Tarkenton still has a verbal and mental fastball.

The return of Cousins definitely conjures memories of Tarkenton’s second act in Minnesota, which resulted in three Super Bowl appearances.

The Vikings would be thrilled if, with Cousins back in the fold, they could manage just one.