The Minnesota Vikings will hit the road on Sunday for their Week 9 showdown against the Atlanta Falcons and it will be their first game after starting quarterback Kirk Cousins suffered a season-ending Achilles tear last week. The devastating injury created a sudden QB crisis for the franchise and as a result, they ended up trading a 2024 sixth-round pick to the Arizona Cardinals for veteran Joshua Dobbs ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline.
Even with the trade, head coach Kevin O’Connell announced on Tuesday that rookie Jaren Hall will get the start against the Falcons this week. Hall replaced Cousins in the fourth quarter of last week’s 24-10 victory over the Green Bay Packers, going 3-4 for 23 yards. He was also strip sacked deep in his own territory shortly after his entry into the game. The BYU product was drafted in the fifth-round of this year’s draft and is coming off a season where he threw for over 3,000 yards and 31 touchdowns as a fifth-year senior in Provo.
Even though Hall is starting, O’Connell did mention that there is a possibility that Dobbs could play some snaps in this game. The veteran QB still needs some time to get familiar with the team’s playbook before presumably taking over as the starter for the rest of the season.