Harrison Phillips acknowledges 'huge loss' in Vikings' leadership

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The question asked on NFL Network Thursday morning was a leading one, but that doesn’t change the fact that defensive tackle Harrison Phillips recognizes the leadership hole the Minnesota Vikings are trying to patch after Kirk Cousins left for the Atlanta Falcons is enormous.

“There is going to be a huge loss,” Phillips said when asked about losing Cousins’s leadership. “Kirk Cousins as a person, as a leader, as a teammate, that’s a big void in your locker room.

“One of the most humble guys that I’ve ever been around. Servant-leader, just a great motivator. He’s great. To ask one person to fill that void is probably not probable, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to have a great leadership team, which we’ve already seen. There’s already guys that I’ve seen these last few seasons being on this roster. Some are captains, some are not captains yet but will be in their careers. We’re going to pass that torch off, kind of division of labor, we’re all going to carry that load together and maybe we can be a better football team for it.”

Cousins isn’t the only leader from the 2023 roster that is gone. Of Minnesota eight captains in 2023, only five are back in 2024: Justin Jefferson, Brian O’Neill, Josh Metellus, C.J. Ham and Harrison Smith.

Danielle Hunter (Texans) and Jordan Hicks (Browns) are also gone after serving as captains last season.

“Kirk’s obviously amazing and I’ve learned a lot from him in the leadership side of things and that’s an area that I’m trying to step up and improve my game by working on my leadership abilities,” Phillips said.

If quarterbacks lead, then the pressure will be on Sam Darnold, Nick Mullens, Jaren Hall and rookie first-round pick J.J. McCarthy. Phillips seemed to suggest that he expects Darnold to be the starting quarterback to begin the season, though he admitted those decisions are above his pay grade.

“I have a ton of confidence in Sam. I played against him every year at USC and unfortunately I think he won a few more of those than we did at Stanford,” Phillips said. “But, I have full confidence in him that he’s going to go out and win as many football games as he’s allowed to go win for us.”