Going into the offseason Minnesota Vikings Hats , the Minnesota Vikings had three quarterbacks on their roster that many considered to be, at the very least, solid options. They had Case Keenum, who was coming off of the best season of his career in leading the Vikings to the 2017 NFC Championship Game. They had Sam Bradford, who looked amazing in the 2017 opener before getting injured and giving way to Keenum. And they had Teddy Bridgewater, who fought back from a gruesome knee injury to get back on the field and had endeared himself to many of the Vikings’ faithful despite not putting up huge statistical numbers.Yet, when the time came to give out a big quarterback contract in March of 2018, Vikings’ GM Rick Spielman, head coach Mike Zimmer Minnesota Vikings Hoodie , and offensive coordinator John DeFilippo decided that the answer to that question was “none of the above.” Instead, they wined, dined, and eventually gave the first fully-guaranteed contract in the NFL’s free agency era to Kirk Cousins. Cousins had bided his time in Washington, playing under the franchise tag for two consecutive years, but was never really embraced by the coaching staff in the nation’s capital. . .or the majority of the fan base, for that matter.It’s still early in the season, but to this point it appears that the people that run the Vikings might kind of sort of have an idea about what they’re doing.We’ll skip Bridgewater, who hasn’t seen the field in 2018 because he’s backing up Drew Brees in New Orleans.In Arizona www.thevikingsfootballauthentic.com , Bradford started the first three games of the season for the Cardinals (who the Vikings will see this coming Sunday). In those three games, he threw for a total of 400 yards, including a 90-yard performance in a shutout loss against the Rams. He was pulled late in the team’s Week 3 loss to Chicago in favor of rookie Josh Rosen. In each of the last two games, not only has Bradford not played, he hasn’t even been active. That means that not only was he behind Rosen on the depth chart, he’s now behind Mike Glennon.Yes, Mike Glennon. But at least he’s getting about $20 million this year to not dress on game day.In Denver, things haven’t been much better for Keenum. He got off to a decent enough start, throwing three touchdown passes (and three interceptions) in a season-opening victory over Seattle. Then Minnesota Vikings T-Shirt , he had no touchdown passes in Week 2.Or Week 3.Or Week 4.He finally got back on track against the Jets on Sunday with two more scoring throws, but the Broncos are now riding a three-game losing streak after winning their first two games.Cousins, on the other hand, has been pretty good.With Brees yet to play in Week 5 action, Cousins is currently second in the NFL in passing yardage (behind Jared Goff), and is currently completing over 71% of his passes, despite being one of the most pressured quarterbacks in the National Football League so far this season. He’s thrown 11 touchdown passes through the team’s first five games, and has thrown only two interceptions, both of which came on passes that really should have been caught by their intended receiver. He’s on pace to shatter just about every Vikings’ single-season passing record.I understand that Cousins gets the benefit of an incredibly talented supporting case Minnesota Vikings Hats , with Adam Thielen and Stefon Diggs comprising the best receiving duo in the NFL and Kyle Rudolph continuing to do his thing as well. Keenum and Bradford undoubtedly benefited from having those players to work with as well. However, Cousins was good before he got the opportunity to work with this group of skill position players. The Vikings knew that Cousins’ skills would be even more enhanced by getting to work with those guys. Keenum and Bradford, on the other hand, got the benefit of playing with those players as well but couldn’t get the Vikings to the promised land.I can’t imagine that there are a lot of holdouts left in the pro-Keenum or pro-Bradford or pro-Bridgewater camps after the first five weeks of this season. However, at this early juncture, it sure does look like the Vikings have made the right decision.Norse Code Podcast Episode 239: Athletic Sportswriters *****Download Link Here*****(00:30) Announcement (09:00) An Eclipse of Shade(11:05) Jags Review(37:57) The Sack That Wasn’t(57:13) Injuries(01:05:10) Mailbag(01:36:36) The Tiger QuestionEpisode Notes:Here’s my introductory piece at The Athletic. A preview will be coming later today.The Chicago Tribune dropped a stunnaThe only time you could compare Troy Polamalu and Cordarrelle PattersonChris Kluwe has thoughts on “distractions”Hopefully this HIPAA/NFL explainer helps. Maybe this piece partially clarifies the employer/provider distinctionAnd yes, the practice of injury reporting comes from leveling the playing field for gamblersHere’s Arnel Pineda’s first appearance with JourneySpecial thanks to Rhymesayers Entertainment and Atmosphere for the new theme song!Arif - @ArifHasanNFLJames - @bigmonoTo listen to more, this is the link to that iTunes feed. If you can’t for whatever reason subscribe via iTunes, subscribe to via our RSS feed Minnesota Vikings Womens Hoodie , which should support the RSS reader or podcast organizer of your choice. You can still leave a review even if you can’t subscribe via iTunes because it’s easy to create an AppleID. We also have a YouTube channel. Our podcasts are automatically uploaded there.If you want to make sure you don’t miss an episode and find out ways to support the show, head to our website!But we also have a Patreon and that should make it even easier to support the best podcast for your Minnesota Vikings. We know that it’s a tough ask given all the problems involving their transaction fees, but if can manage it, check it out here. If you wanted to donate via Paypal instead of Patreon, head to this link.Once again, contact me at arifmhasan (at) gmail dot com or the podcast at NorseCodePodcast (at) gmail dot com. Follow us on twitter at @NorseCodeDN or just me at @ArifHasanNFL. You can follow producer and host James Pogatshnik at @bigmono.