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Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky of the Buffalo Bills.
The Minnesota Vikings apparently know all they need to about Sam Howell after benching him for Brett Rypien over the weekend, which opens up trade possibilities of all kinds.
Some bigger names will potentially come available in the weeks and months ahead. For instance, Anthony Richardson is probably on his last chance with the Indianapolis Colts, while multiple former NFL players have suggested the Cleveland Browns might put Shedeur Sanders on the trade block in short order. Then there is former Vikings starter Kirk Cousins who is languishing on the Atlanta Falcons‘ depth chart as their QB2.
However, none of those players is a perfect fit in Minnesota, each for his own specific reasons. Richardson would make more sense next offseason as longterm competition for J.J. McCarthy with regards to the starting job, assuming things don’t work out in Indy.
Sanders is an unproven rookie, so he doesn’t really translate into the viable backup option the Vikings will look for on the market.
And Cousins, who makes the most sense in 2025, could prove the most problematic addition where McCarthy is concerned, given the 22-year-old might be looking over his shoulder too frequently at a former six-year starter for Minnesota who led the team to the playoffs just three seasons ago.
The most sensible solution for the Vikings, based on their low-cost QB plan, is to find an established veteran with starting experience on a cheap, short-term contract. There are not a ton of such players available, which means Minnesota might have to overpay a bit from a trade return standpoint.
If the team is willing to do so, Mitchell Trubisky of the Buffalo Bills fits the profile exactly.
Mitchell Trubisky Started Career as Bears’ 1st-Round Pick
GettyQuarterback Mitchell Trubisky, formerly of the Chicago Bears.
Trubisky is a former first-round pick of the Chicago Bears (No. 2 overall in 2017) and is heading into the second season of his two-year, $5.25 million deal as the backup to Bills superstar quarterback Josh Allen.
As an eight-year NFL veteran with a winning career record (31-26), Trubisky is a fine security blanket behind the reigning league MVP. However, it’s hard to argue he’s a necessary one.
Allen has missed just one regular-season start over his last six campaigns. So while Trubisky appeared in nine contests last year, he threw just 26 passes in what was entirely garbage time for Buffalo. The Bills also have two other signal-callers in Mike White and Shane Buechele on the roster.
Vikings Could Feasibly Acquire Mitchell Trubisky for Sam Howell, Fifth-Round Draft Pick
GettyQuarterback Mitchell Trubisky of the Buffalo Bills.
All that said, Buffalo has no incentive to move Trubisky, thus the Vikings would have to create one.
The team could include Howell as a throw-in to any deal with the Bills for Trubisky to stack Buffalo’s QB room with another former NFL starter behind Allen, in the unlikely case he doesn’t continue his ironman-like streak of health/reliability. But the real prize would be the included draft asset.
One reasonable comparison could be the deal the Cleveland Browns made with the Philadelphia Eagles for Kenny Pickett, who is a similar player to Trubisky in several ways, albeit four years younger (former first-round pick, winning but modest record as an NFL starter, some high-end traits but probably not a longterm answer in the league, and so on).
The Browns sent reserve quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson and a fifth-round pick to the Eagles for Pickett. If the Vikings dangled Howell and a future fifth-rounder, that might be enough to get the Bills to bite on a Trubisky trade.
Max Dible covers the NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns. He covered local and statewide news as a reporter for West Hawaii Today and served as news director for BigIslandNow.com and Pacific Media Group’s family of Big Island radio stations before joining Heavy. More about Max Dible
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