{"id":272865,"date":"2026-04-07T09:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=272865"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:54:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T10:54:37","slug":"is-kirk-cousins-the-answer-temporarily-for-the-las-vegas-raiders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2026\/04\/07\/is-kirk-cousins-the-answer-temporarily-for-the-las-vegas-raiders\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Kirk Cousins the Answer Temporarily for the Las Vegas Raiders?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kirk Cousins officially signed with the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a> on April 2, 2026. This marks a significant shift for a franchise looking to stabilize its quarterback room under new head coach Klint Kubiak. <\/span><\/p>\n

Cousins will impact the Raiders in three ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

3 Impacts that Kirk Cousins Will Bring to Las Vegas<\/h2>\n

The ‘Bridge’ to the Future<\/h4>\n

The Raiders are widely expected to select Indiana quarterback and 2025 Heisman winner Fernando Mendoza<\/a> with the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Cousins was brought in specifically to serve as the \u2018bridge\u2019 starter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Cousins provides a veteran presence that allows Mendoza to develop without being forced to start in Week 1. Given Cousins\u2019 history of having navigated through complex quarterback rooms in Washington<\/a> and Atlanta,<\/a> the front office views him as the ideal mentor for a franchise rookie.<\/span><\/p>\n

Offensive Continuity with Klint Kubiak<\/h4>\n

Cousins has a deep history with Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak<\/a> from their time together with the Minnesota Vikings.<\/a> Because of this, he is fluent in Kubiak\u2019s offensive schemes. The Raiders expect a much faster acclimation period than a typical veteran signing.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a 4-13 finish in 2025, the Raiders are prioritizing \u2018floor\u2019 over \u2018ceiling in the short term. Cousins offers a level of passing efficiency and pre-snap command that the team lacked last season.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Financial Flexibility<\/h4>\n

While the headlines noted a \u2018five-year, $172 million\u2019 deal, the actual impact on the Raiders\u2019 cap is relatively low. It is effectively a one-year $20 million guaranteed deal for 2026. Interestingly, the Atlanta Falcons are paying $8.7 million of his salary this year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This means that the Raiders are only on the hook for $11.3 million in cash for 2026. The deal includes a two-year club option for 2027-2028 that the Raiders are unlikely to trigger if Mendoza is ready to take over. This essentially makes this a low-risk, high-reward veteran rental.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With quarterback Kirk Cousins now a part of the Las Vegas Raiders, read about three bold impacts he will make for the team in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5783,"featured_media":272904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6431,17],"tags":[33533,33883,33710,403,8741],"class_list":["post-272865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-teams","category-raiders","tag-2026-nfl-draft","tag-2026-nfl-free-agency","tag-fernando-mendoza","tag-kirk-cousins","tag-klint-kubiak"],"modified_by":"Sue Levine","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272865"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":272906,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272865\/revisions\/272906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}