Ex-Vikings QB Accuses Team of Lying, Protecting Kirk Cousins

The Kirk Cousins era for the Minnesota Vikings proved more turbulent despite the consistency the Pro Bowl quarterback brought to the position.

Much has been made about the final years of Mike Zimmer and Rick Spielman’s tenure, and Cousins appeared to be the rift between the two decision-makers.

However, the Vikings went far to keep any pressure off of Cousins, including telling backup Kyle Sloter to play worse to avoid any external speculation of a competition, the former NFL quarterback says.

Sloter’s side of the story has been documented before. The former undrafted quarterback put on a show every preseason in Minnesota from 2017 t0 2019, winning the admiration of many fans despite Sean Mannion being chosen as the team’s QB2 during that span.

He’s also not the only quarterback to come forward with similar claims. CFL star Bo Levi Mitchell shared a similar story.

Sloter recently resurfaced in an appearance on “The Victory Degree” podcast and suggested the Vikings front office also sabotaged his career.

Vikings Told Sloter Not to Perform to His Best Ability, He Says

Undrafted coming out of the 2017 draft class, Sloter was a journeyman backup and bounced around the league as a backup and emergency regular-season signing, but never played in a regular-season game.

Part of Sloter’s argument for his career being hurt by the Vikings was the expectation to be a good backup and not the best quarterback he could be.

“I have had people tell me that in order to make it as a backup in the league, year after year after year, you have to play like a backup — and it just was never me. It was never me to not go out there and compete,” Sloter said. “It was never me to go out there and not feel like, hey, if I’m not the starter, my mindset is I’m going to be the starter someday. I’m going to be better than the starter.”

Sloter often performed well in the preseason but was cut in favor of Mannion, who was credited as an asset to the quarterback room and to Cousins as a study partner.

“I pride myself in the fact that I have never questioned the plan. I did things my own way at times. I wasn’t always compliant with the way that a backup quarterback probably should be, which led to me probably being out of the league and not getting opportunities in certain places,” Sloter said.

“I was told when I was with the Vikings at one point that I needed to do less. That I needed to go out there and be worse in the preseason because it was creating an atmosphere that was not what they wanted. They don’t want competition between a backup quarterback and a starter. They don’t want any controversy. They don’t want those things, especially when you have a lot of guaranteed money on a guy that is going to play no matter what,” he added.

Sloter argued that he was never given a fair shake due to the business side of the NFL and the money sunk into paying players like Cousins.

However, his issue was that when he found opportunities elsewhere, there was coercion from his former teams that harmed his chances, he said.

From Sloter:

The lies that were told about me by management at certain teams that I was at — I hesitate to use blackball because I don’t like that term — there were things said about me that made people hesitate to take me on teams that were not true that I had to do some damage control that we ultimately got through, but it altered the trajectory of my career.

Not saying I did or didn’t, this is purely hypothetical: If Kyle Sloter is deemed, hey, he’s playing better than Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins, you’re benched. Kyle Sloter, you’re in. Well Kyle Sloter is making $600,000-$700,000, Kirk Cousins just got $84 million guaranteed and now he’s your backup quarterback. Buddy, you’re fired. The GM, you’re out of here. What are you doing?

And then when Kyle Sloter has potential and an opportunity to go somewhere and we think that he could end up being something, we ship him off or we get him out of here and he gets picked up somewhere else and we call that team and tell them hey he’s doing this, this, this and this. And it’s all lies, so that I don’t resurface and have a career…

If Kyle Sloter was on the Vikings for minimum and I go somewhere else and turn out to be what I thought I could be — let’s just say I end up being a superstar. If you had me for nothing as an undrafted free agent for minimum and I’m a superstar somewhere else, that GM is getting fired. And they knew it. And I was doing it in Minnesota for three years. The evidence was there and you just ignored it. And I’m not the first person this happened to. I know I’m sitting here telling my story — there’s 10-20 other guys from just my time in the NFL that I know this has happened to, so it is a league where, yeah, you gotta get lucky, right place, right time as well.