You never want to see anyone get injured, especially a rookie who is eagerly awaiting the fulfillment of a dream. We saw that on Friday when the Atlanta Falcons lost rookie Bralen Trice to a season-ending ACL injury.

Trice wasn’t the only highly-regarded rookie who went down with a knee injury. Vikings’ new quarterback J.J. McCarthy, who was selected with the tenth pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, needs knee surgery and is out indefinitely. This will certainly bring the regret of not re-signing Kirk Cousins back to the surface.

Kirk Cousins’ former team instantly regrets not being more aggressive in re-signing the veteran

The tables have turned quick and while everyone always likes being proven right, you cannot help but feel bad for the player who will have to delay his regular season debut for a while.

There is also a lot of irony in this; the Atlanta Falcons signed Kirk Cousins as their starting quarterback and drafted Michael Penix Jr. to be his successor. Meanwhile, the Minnesota Vikings let their long-time starter walk in favor of the eventual first-round pick J.J. McCarthy, in addition to veteran Sam Darnold.

Now, following the serious injury to McCarthy in his first preseason game, the Falcons have two starting-caliber quarterbacks while the Vikings have none (all due respect to Darnold).

If the Vikings front office isn’t regretting their decision to let Cousins walk they need to reevaluate their philosophy.

Instead of having Sam Darnold in line to start, Minnesota could have Kirk Cousins—who let’s not forget was on an MVP pace last year—and J.J. McCarthy.

Kevin O’Connell is a phenomenal coach who can get the best out of Sam Darnold but forgive me for thinking the quarterback isn’t capable of a deep playoff run.

The other ironic part about this is the Vikings are now in the same position the Falcons were in two years ago. Atlanta let’s long-time starter Matt Ryan (Kirk Cousins) and plans to start journeyman and former high draft pick Marcus Mariota (Sam Darnold). We all know how that turned out.

With that being said, the Dirty Birds didn’t use a top draft pick on a talented signal-caller. We can only make that comparison now because of the brutal injury to the former Michigan QB.

All in all, what this injury further proves is that every team needs a quality backup. Fortunately for the Falcons, if disaster were to happen to their new starter, they have a rookie with sky-high potential.