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.