EAGAN, Minn. -- Will the 2023 season be Kirk Cousins' last as the Minnesota Vikings' starting quarterback? The team got no closer to answering that question Saturday on the final day of the NFL draft, prompting general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah to downplay the apparent contract stalemate that emerged this spring between Cousins and the team.
The sides could not agree to terms on a multiyear extension in March. Instead, they restructured the deal for salary-cap purposes only and left it set to expire in March 2024, when Cousins will be approaching his 36th birthday.
That move was widely interpreted as a signal that the Vikings would replace Cousins at that point, but after failing to draft a quarterback who would be an obvious potential heir, Adofo-Mensah said he has made no decision on Cousins' future.
"When you go into a contract negotiation, you're trying to come up with solutions together," Adofo-Mensah said. "It's not just what Kwesi wants or what the Vikings want or what Kirk wants. It's what we can do together to ultimately put up that Lombardi [Trophy]. Sometimes you come to a place where you decide, 'Hey, let's talk later. This is a solution for now.' That's all that's happened."
The Vikings heavily researched the draft's quarterback class, but the top three passers flew off the board in the first four picks. They used a fifth-round pick on BYU's Jaren Hall, a player Adofo-Mensah scouted in person and whom other Vikings officials raved about Saturday for his leadership and character. But it's unlikely that any NFL team would immediately carve its future plans around a quarterback who was still available at the No. 164 overall pick.
Adofo-Mensah declined to say whether he considered Hall a potential replacement, saying: "For me to tell you that this person specifically will be at a certain performance bucket at a certain place, I can't do that." But he also said that Cousins didn't need to show him anything during the 2023 season to prompt a renewed set of contract discussions.
"Kirk doesn't need to do show anything to me," Adofo-Mensah said. "Kirk has played football at a high level before I got to the Minnesota Vikings. Last year we won 13 games. I don't know what he would need to prove to me or anybody else."
Ultimately, the Vikings are on course to thread a personnel needle. They have given themselves the opportunity to move on from Cousins if his performance deteriorates, or if they find a better option, while acknowledging the possibility that neither could occur.
"We like where we are at the quarterback position," Adofo-Mensah said. "But every option is open to us going forward. We're just really excited about Kirk this year. The weapons we've added in free agency, the weapons we added in the draft [will help], and we'll see what happens after that."