Raiders make BLOCKBUSTER trade... Kirk Cousins Gone

It's official. Kirk Cousins has been traded back to the Minnesota Vikings in return for a third round pick. That's right. After everything that's happened this season, Cousins ends up back with the Vikings and the Raiders, a third round pick in 2027. That's right. No first round pick, which we all pretty much assumed at this point. No second round pick and no player. A A 2027 third round pick. Cousins heads back to Minnesota for a playoff push. And his first game could come in the same building at Lambeau Field that he last played as a Minnesota Viking. Now, the reactions are plenty from both sides, both fan bases. But from Raiders fans, the question is really only a third round pick. You had all the leverage, but let's get into the trade because this trade now opens up a door that most Raiders fans have been looking at for. months. And that was what was confirmed right after the trade was made. Fernando Mendoza is now the starting quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders. So did the Raiders just give away their best player for nothing? Is the return pretty good? Let's dive into the trade and what this means for a guy like Mendoza moving forward. Now, the frustrating part is you knew you weren't going to get a first round pick, but a third round pick is pretty frustrating to some fans because The Raiders had all the leverage here. After Monday night's game, we knew that the Vikings had to make a trade for a quarterback. The Vikings lost 23-6 to Buffalo and went 0-8 on 3rd down. Carson Wentz, which was their only option last night, went 8-25 and for 81 yards. On the season, Wentz is at a minus 19 in passing EPA and Kyler Murray is at minus 10. Cousins is having borderline an elite season, a career season for himself. He's at a plus 54, the best on the Raiders by a mile. And Minnesota already made their bed trading away J.J. McCarthy for a fifth round pick in September to the New York Giants. That left Murray, Wentz and Max Brosmer and the talks with Vegas reportedly picked up right after the loss. Last night into early this morning, Ian Rapoport was reporting that they were looking into Daniel Jones as well, but the obvious answer was always the quarterback that they already knew, the guy who can come in, the guy who knows the playbook, and that is Kirk Cousins. And they didn't want to waste this elite defense. Minnesota allows only 14.5 points per game, the fewest in the NFL, and they had nobody. Who could throw the ball or create offense. And again, the familiarity aspect led them to the Raiders. Cousins started 88 games for the Raiders from 2018 to 2023. And they went 50, 37, and 1 in those games. In his last two seasons with KOC in 2022 and 2023, he threw 47 touchdowns and only 19 interceptions. Minnesota's quarterbacks this year have had 8 touchdown passes combined. Kirk Cousins had 20. in Vegas. And now he goes back to KOC, a coach where he did have some success and got the best out of him in a divisional game against Green Bay on Sunday. Now, again, back to the Raiders point of view and why it's a little bit frustrating. So this morning it was reported that the Vikings had very little leverage. They were calling different teams. All roads were leading them to Kirk Cousins and the price paid ended up being a third round pick. And it's arguably not even their best third round pick. Minnesota also owns Philadelphia's third next year from the Greenard trade, and they ended up keeping that one. The last two times that a team has traded and bought a starting quarterback at the trade deadline, the price was a lot higher. In 2011, the Raiders gave Cincinnati a first round pick and a conditional second for Carson Palmer. In 2016, Minnesota gave Philadelphia a first and a conditional fourth for Sam Bradford. It's kind of ironic that it is both of these teams that were involved in both of those trades and the Vikings have paid a first round pick or high leverage assets before for starting quarterback help. But today they got a bit of a deal. And to be honest, it's not a bad deal. It's not a horrible deal for the Raiders either. However, both of those quarterbacks were traded for first round picks and both teams paid the first because they were desperate. And Minnesota walking into this morning was also that desperate. And the second that that trade went through, the market on Sunday completely changed for the Raiders. Seattle comes into Vegas on Sunday, and after the trade, almost immediately, the Raiders dropped 10 points. On Kalshi right now, only 28% chance to win the game on Sunday with Seattle. But if you believe in the new starting quarterback and this team to continue to get it done, even though there was a message sent through this trade, $25 traded on the Raiders right now pays out up to $85. And that is once again on Kalshi, the sponsor of today's video. Thank you very much to Kalshi for partnering and supporting the channel. If you're interested in trying out Kalshi, check out the links in the description or the pin comment and use promo code digest NFL when signing up as new users get Fifty five dollars instantly added to their account when they trade their first twenty five dollars. Once again, the links are in the description. Thank you very much to Kalshi for sponsoring this video. Now let's get into what this trade means for another player. So Cousins wasn't just holding the seat warm for Mendoza. He was being a mentor and he was having one of the best seasons he's ever had. In the nine games that he played, he completed 202 of 315 passes for twenty three hundred and forty yards. 20 touchdowns, 8 interceptions, he opened the season 3-0 with 3 touchdown passes in each of those games, and he threw at least 1 touchdown pass in all 9 games that he played as a Raider. Now, after that 3-0 start, the Raiders lost five of their next six games, and it wasn't on him at all. He was the bright spot of this season. He threw for 365 yards against Kansas City in a 30-27 loss and 313 against Buffalo in a 33-30 loss. The defense is clearly the weakest link of this team. They allow over 30 points a game, the most in the NFL. So him throwing was keeping this team... He also hit a career milestone on Sunday as he passed Frank Tarkenton for 15th all-time in career passing yards with 47,040. Even after a three interception day in San Francisco, Clint Kubiak called him an extremely solid decision maker and the heartbeat of this team. And like I mentioned, what doesn't show up here in box scores and what we talk about on the channel sometimes and what others talk about is that he was a mentor for this first overall pick. The plan all season, according to Ian Rappaport, was for Mendoza to sit back and learn and watch from Kirk Cousins, and it sounds like it has worked. In October, Kubiak Said that Mendoza was doing more than asked behind the scenes, you know, staying late on the field, really helping out teammates and just keeping the mood light. Now, Cousins on the other side of it never really wanted credit for it. In June, he said that the mentor talk was more of a narrative and that he was just learning from the young guys as well. And I just want to say now that he's on the way out and going for a playoff run with Minnesota, he handled this with such... Grace, he came in, he played so well. He was a mentor, despite what he says, for Mendoza. A great guy to learn from, and he was having one of the best seasons of his career. And it was just a lot of fun to watch. A lot of fun to watch. And I think that he will be missed by Raiders fans. And keep in mind, the Raiders didn't actually even want to move him. Given his success and his leadership qualities, according to Sam Warren, they did not want to trade him. They weren't looking to go out and shop him. However, they are building towards a future that does not involve him, and he's not even in the plans for next season anyway. He leaves Vegas with 20 touchdowns in nine games and a locker room that by every report did not want to trade him, did not want him traded, and the organization wasn't shopping him. Now, if you've been with me through every turn through this whole Kirk Cousins situation, Max Crosby trade rumors, all that type of stuff, and you're new here to the channel and you haven't yet subscribed, if you are enjoying the content, make sure to hit that subscribe button. I'm going to try and keep you guys updated with everything that's happening with the Raiders throughout the rest of the season. And we just hit 4,000 subscribers. So thank you so much for the support out here on the channel, guys. And we're now on the way to the new goal of five 1000 subscribers. Once again, if you haven't yet, make sure to hit that subscribe button. Now back into what this means for the Raiders. So if they didn't want to trade him, why did they trade him? Why did they sell him off the deadline? And why for a third round pick two weeks ago, Clint Kubiak at the podium said that Kirk Cousins is our quarterback, and there is no controversy there. We're not trading him. But he also said that eventually Fernando Mendoza was going to play football. He said we have a plan, but we don't have a timeline. Well, we found out what the timeline was now. When I say they were never shopping him, they were going to pick up the phone, but I don't think they were actively looking to trade him. But what we did learn today from Ian Rapoport was that the plan the whole time was to wait until whether there was a trade today or not, the Raiders to fall out of playoff contention, mathematically be eliminated, and then Mendoza would take over and be ushered into the spotlight as the starting quarterback. And Cousins knew that at some point that was coming. He said that the day that Mendoza was drafted in April, he told Kubiak that the best player should get that position and should play. The reason this trade works for both teams and worked for the Raiders to even have Cousins on the team this year is because he's only making $1.3 million this season and Atlanta is paying out the rest of his $8.7 million on his contract. And it was necessary for at some point soon the Raiders to move off of his contract, whether it would be here at the trade deadline or right after the season ends, because in March he has a $10 million roster bonus that was coming up. And now that's Minnesota's problem. And if he was still on the roster beyond that, he has a two year option worth up to $80 million, which was guaranteed and keeping him for a playoff race of which you probably were going to get eliminated anyway from. I mean, you're five and six right now. You're playing some good teams coming up. It didn't really make sense at the end of the day. And as soon as you're eliminated, Mendoza was going to take over as the quarterback anyway. And with this record and being three games behind Denver and the AFC West, this team was not. It's probably not going to make the playoffs. And now reporters are saying, hey, you still got a very good asset here with a third round pick for a guy that wasn't part of the plans in the future. You're probably not making the playoffs. And now Mendoza is going to start anyway. And it does give the Raiders two third round picks in 2027, of course, their own and now Minnesota's. And a third round pick is maybe not. What I think of as a premium asset in terms of like a first or a second round pick, of course, but that's a pick that could turn into another player. You can go out and flip those assets. You can go out and use that draft pick to acquire a good future player. Now, a third round pick in 2027 isn't going to change this team overnight. But what is going to change overnight, again, is the quarterback, the starting quarterback, which is now Mendoza. Fernando Mendoza was the number one overall pick in this year's draft. And he's thrown eight passes all season. Six completions, 48 yards, and Vegas gave him a four-year deal at $57.2 million guaranteed. And now he's been watching all the way up until this point. Cousins played the entire season, basically. He had 2,340 yards and Mendoza, again, only had 48 against New England. Ian Rapoport reported that in practice, he has been dicing up. Defenses, that is what the quote was. Now he gets to play against some real ones. His first two starts are coming against Seattle and Denver, two of the top defenses in the entire NFL. Seattle finished first in the NFL in points allowed per drive last season at 1.48, and Denver led the whole league in sacks. And Denver will be well rested when he gets there because Denver is 7-2 and leads the AFC West with 3. games up on the Raiders right now. Then they're at Cleveland, three straight top 12 scoring defenses to start his NFL career as a starter. So it's a tough spot. That is for sure. And I think that's what the Raiders front office was being wary of because for a rookie with eight career passes. That is about as hard as a three game stretch gets to make your debut. And now the Raiders have eight games left to try and surprise or just find out what they are and what they have ahead of the 2027 offseason. And every single one of these touches coming up the next couple of weeks, everyone is going to be watching very intently to see. What this looks like heading into the future. So what's the verdict here? Was this a bad trade? I think a lot of Raiders fans might be frustrated with the return. Maybe it could have been higher. This is a team in the Minnesota Vikings that had their backs against the wall, but. It's still a fine return and a move that doesn't really hurt you because you knew that something like this had to happen at some point. Anyway, I've made a couple of videos on this already, and I think keeping them on this team, the way it was trending made very little sense. And you get that $10 million bonus off the books. You usher Mendoza in a little bit earlier. We can, you know, he's already learned from Kirk Cousins. Now when he gets to apply it against some really good teams to start his career and Kirk Cousins came in and did his job for this team, 20 touchdowns and was a mentor to a first overall pick. If you're grading it on the pick for the player alone, maybe you can make the argument that the Raiders lost, right? This is a team with no leverage in the Vikings that ended up making this trade and. When you're looking at the entire scenario, including Mendoza into the equation, I don't think it's that bad. I think this is something that probably had to happen anyway. But let me know in the comments below how you feel. Do you like the trade? Was the third round pick enough for Kirk Cousins? Comment yes or no down below. Let me know how you feel about the trade event if you need to. I know a lot of people were still hopeful that they were going to make the playoffs. I don't think it was trending that way. And now you get a third round pick. For a quarterback that wasn't a part of the future and your future franchise quarterback is ready to take over. The Mendoza era officially starts Sunday at four o'clock Eastern. Guys, my name is Darius Dominguez. This is Raiders Digest, a huge trade. And I'm sure we're going to have all the fallout from Clint Kubiak, from John Spytek very soon. I'll keep you guys covered for that on the channel. I'll see you in the next one.