EAGAN, Minn. — There are ebbs and flows to any NFL season, and teams that can navigate those ups and downs and keep a steady hand on the tiller over a 17-game schedule are usually the ones that end up in the playoffs, with a shot at the Lombardi Trophy.
And yet there are some bumps that are difficult, if not impossible to recover from. The Minnesota Vikings experienced one of those in Week 8 of the 2023-24 season when quarterback and locker room leader Kirk Cousins suffered a torn Achilles tendon.
On Friday the Vikings posted an interesting piece of video on the team's social media platforms that captured a moment the season went south. Cousins was actually mic'd up as the club took the field against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
The clip begins with a heart-warming family moment as Cousins talks with his family on the sidelines, asking his son about the tooth he lost on the drive to Title Town. He shouts with joy as the Vikings score touchdown after touchdown, racing off to a 21-point lead.
And then... it happened. In the fourth quarter, with the Vikings on cruise control en route to a 24-10 victory, Cousins grabs the snap, takes a short drop and then plants his back foot. You can hear the veteran QB gasp as he crumbles to the ground.
"You alright?" a member of the training staff asks after Cousins hops to the sideline on his left leg. "Yeah, I'm alright. My ankle's shot," Cousins replies.
"I went to go and my heel got locked to the ground," the QB told staffers. "Someone stepped on me. I went, and my heel didn't go. I didn't feel anything go," Cousins assured trainers.
In an interview, Cousins says he thought his ankle was sprained, but as he described the sensation - pain not on either side of the joint, but in the back - the team physician knew exactly what had happened, and accompanied the lynchpin of the Vikings offense to the dreaded blue tent to be checked out. It was the moment that would morph into a quarterback carousel and a late-season swoon that would see the Purple finish out of the playoff hunt.
"I assumed at first it was just a sprained ankle, this is going to be a difficult next month as I rehab, I can play, I'm a pocket passer," Cousins recalls thinking. "I still didn't think I had torn anything, didn't think it would be season-ending, I just knew probably game-ending."
"I was in denial," he concludes.
Cousins underwent season-ending surgery and subsequent stem cell treatments to repair the torn Achilles and is expected to take the field again in 2024-25. Whether that will be for the Vikings or some other club is uncertain as the two sides attempt to strike a deal that will keep Cousins in Minnesota.
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