Almost every team in the league walked away with a quarterback that they feel confident about, either in the short or the long term, this offseason. However, the one major exception to that case was the New Orleans Saints. With a shoulder injury leading to Derek Carr announcing a shock retirement, the Saints were left scrambling for a QB.
Unfortunately, they didn’t walk away with a real answer. As a result, one analyst has them as potential suitors for a veteran name as a potential trade candidate. But they aren’t alone, as the Minnesota Vikings, betting on last year’s first-round pick, J.J. McCarthy, to be their franchise quarterback, could also seek a reunion if things don’t go according to plan.
Could the Vikings and the Saints Gamble On an Expensive Veteran?
After an Achilles injury cut his final year in Minnesota short, Kirk Cousins got a monster four-year deal worth $180 million from the Atlanta Falcons. However, his first year was far from excellent, leading to the Falcons upgrading rookie Michael Penix Jr. to QB1.
This year, Cousins is firmly in the backup seat behind Penix, leading many to believe a trade could be on the horizon. Among those names is Kristopher Knox of Bleacher Report, who believes a Minnesota reunion or New Orleans is the best possible option.
If “threading the needle” was a throw…
It’s this Kirk Cousins to Adam Thielen TD 🪡 pic.twitter.com/7owYBHk7kU
— NFL (@NFL) June 16, 2025
“New Orleans lost Derek Carr to retirement and is staging a competition between Jake Haener, Spencer Rattler, and rookie second-round pick Tyler Shough.” Among the three, no one projects to suddenly turn into a starting-caliber quarterback.
For the Vikings, head coach Kevin O’Connell is confident that McCarthy can deliver a better season than last year’s surprise story, Sam Darnold, who led the team to 14 wins while tallying the fifth-most yards and touchdowns in the league.
But Knox postulates, “If head coach Kevin O’Connell doesn’t believe McCarthy is ready to start toward the end of camp, he could consider adding a familiar face in Cousins.” The two were together for O’Connell’s first two coaching seasons.
While the second year was taken away prematurely by the Achilles injury to Cousins, the two led the Vikings to the playoffs in 2022, on the back of a 13-win season, before ultimately falling to the New York Giants in the Wild Card Game.
Between these two squads, the Saints feel like the more likely team to take such a swing. They lost their quarterback seemingly out of nowhere and don’t have the same caliber of weapons as Minnesota with Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson.
Moreover, with O’Connell personally vouching for his first-year quarterback, it would be premature to give up on the experiment without a single season of McCarthy at the helm.