Ex-Viking Kirk Cousins reveals he played through arm injury last season

Former Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins revealed for the first time on Tuesday that he was playing through an injury during the Falcons’ four-game losing streak that led to his benching in December.

Cousins said he took a big hit to his right shoulder and elbow in a Week 10 game against the Saints and wasn’t the same afterwards. The Falcons were 6-3 prior to that game, which was the start of a killer four-game losing streak during which he threw no touchdown passes and eight interceptions. He was at 17 TD passes and seven picks through nine weeks.

Coming off a torn Achilles that wound up marking the end of his Vikings career, Cousins got off to a bit of a slow start after signing a four-year, $180 million deal with Atlanta. But he was cruising in October and the first game of November before the arm issue popped up.

“The Achilles healed well,” Cousins told Good Morning Football. “There was a little bit of trying to get my right ankle back around the Achilles. … Against the Saints, got hit pretty good in my right shoulder and elbow and from there, kinda dealing with that was something I was working through. Just never could really get it to where I wanted it. So now that the season’s over, you’ve got the time and the energy to say ‘OK, let’s get the right ankle back, let’s get the shoulder back, let’s get the elbow back.’ And if we can do that, feel like I’ve got a new life ahead of me here in pro football.”

That rough stretch included a two-interception game in a 42-21 loss to the Vikings in Cousins’ highly-anticipated return to U.S. Bank Stadium. He continued to struggle in a low-scoring win over the Raiders the following week, and the Falcons decided to bench him in favor of rookie Michael Penix Jr. in Week 16. Penix showed some promise in the final three games and enters this season as the likely starter in Atlanta, which complicates Cousins’ future.

Cousins has a no-trade clause and three years remaining on his contract, but he probably doesn’t want to be the most expensive backup QB in NFL history. A move somewhere else this offseason probably makes the most sense for a guy who still thinks he has gas in the tank ahead of his 37th birthday in August.

“I definitely still feel like I have a lot of good football left in me,” Cousins said. “Time will tell (what happens), it’s still kind of uncertain. We’ll get to March and know a lot more. But I think the focus for me, really, is getting healthy. I’m no good to the Falcons, I’m no good to a team if I’m not feeling really good.”