Are the Vikings eyeing a Kirk Cousins successor in NFL Draft?

The Minnesota Vikings may be looking to trade Kirk Cousins for former Florida star Anthony Richardson in the 2023 NFL Draft.
Don’t look now, but the Minnesota Vikings can look forward to taking Kirk Cousins’ successor in the form of former Florida star Anthony Richardson in the 2023 NFL Draft.
If you had doubts Richardson would be knocked out in the first round this spring, Freakazoid! Presentation in the NFL Combine fast end to it. To be completely honest, there’s no way it’s out of the top 10 right now. We’re about to live in a world where four quarterbacks are among the first 10 draft picks this year. Minnesota would need to trade, but the Vikings did their homework.
SKOR North’s Darren Wolfson reports that Minnesota met Richardson at the combine.
It looks like the Vikings have come to trade Richardson, but there’s more to this…
The Minnesota Vikings can look forward to replacing Kirk Cousins with Anthony Richardson
Admittedly, there is no reason for the Vikings to replace Richardson. They have a great thing with Cousins, who is still playing at a very high level well into his mid-30s. Eventually, he’ll fall off a cliff physically, and the Vikings will go back to being the Vikings quarterback, hopefully whoever they bring in will be a Fran Tarkenton or Daunte Culpepper type.
But for some reason, if Richardson were to fall outside the top half of the first round, he might actually serve the Vikings up slightly from the 23rd to knock out the Florida quarterback. Doing so would be the rough equivalent of this draft of trading the Green Bay Packers to draft Love Jordan out of Utah when they still had Aaron Rodgers…
However, from a long-term standpoint, drafting Richardson and having him sit behind Cousins wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. Just imagine the Vikings getting Warren Moon or Randall Cunningham in the midst of peak sports. Given that Kevin O’Connell is such a smart and offensively abusive head coach, he could certainly come up with something to make him work.
I think the biggest problem that stands out is that Cousins and Richardson don’t play like each other. Winning in the NFL is hard, and it can be even more so if the backup game doesn’t complete the rookie game. Cousins’ standard is precision and accuracy, while Richardson plays with his legs as well as his arm. The timing of everything works, but the fit isn’t perfect.
Ultimately, Minnesota is in an advantageous position to take a pilot in the quarterback draft as Richardson’s other teams may not be sold as such. Then again, he could be exactly what teams like the Las Vegas Raiders and Carolina Panthers are looking for in the quarterback position. Keep in mind, Cousins’ former Washington senior could play a role in drafting Richardson, too.
If Richardson’s game compliments Cousins’ game even just a little, there might be something here.