Former Vikings QB Reveals Shocking Demand Team Allegedly Made Behind Closed Doors

This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.

Kyle Sloter spent years chasing quarterback jobs in the NFL, USFL, and XFL. Minnesota handed him one of his bigger preseason auditions.

Sloter made eight preseason appearances for the Vikings across 2018 and 2019. Minnesota waived him after the 2019 preseason.

The team’s quarterback room has changed a lot since, with Kyler Murray’s Vikings debut making headlines in September.

Now Sloter says his own time there came with an unusual instruction. Speaking on The Victory Degree podcast, he claimed the staff wanted him to play worse.

“I was told, when I was at the Vikings at one point, that I needed to do less,” Sloter said. “That I needed to go out there and be worse in the preseason.”

Sloter Says Teams Avoid Competition Between Backups And Highly Paid Starters

Sloter then explained why he thinks teams ask the above of backups. He says organizations want to avoid any threat to the starter.

“They don’t want competition between a backup quarterback and a starter,” he said. “Don’t want any controversy. They don’t want those things.”

He added that the money matters, too.

“Especially when you have a lot of guaranteed money on a guy that is going to play, no matter what.”

Sloter never named a player. Heavy suggested he may have meant Kirk Cousins, who played for Minnesota at the time. Cousins had signed the first fully guaranteed contract in NFL history, worth $84 million over three years. That connection remains an inference from the outlets, not something Sloter confirmed.

Sloter also rejected the advice he says he received. “You have to play like a backup, and it just was never me,” he said. “It was never me to not go out there and compete.”

Minnesota’s depth chart looks very different today. Even J.J. McCarthy has come and gone, with the Vikings trading him to the Giants this season.