Kyle Sloter is no stranger to making big claims about his stint as a backup quarterback with the Minnesota Vikings. in the past, he’s alleged that former Vikings general manager Rick Spielman and former head coach Mike Zimmer hated each other. He’s also claimed he was instructed to play worse to avoid any public quarterback controversy after Minnesota gave Kirk Cousins an $84 million contract in 2017. Now, he’s suggesting the Vikings crippled his career with lies.
Sloter, who played for the Vikings in 2017-2019 and again late in the 2021 season, joined The Victory Degree podcast and opened a vein about his time in the NFL. While he stopped short of saying he was blackballed from the league, he did suggest that the previous Vikings front office sabotaged his future.
“I pride myself in the fact that I have never questioned the plan. I did things my own way at times. I wasn’t always compliant with the way that a backup quarterback probably should be, which led to me probably being out of the league and not getting opportunities in certain places,” Sloter admitted.
“I was told when I was with the Vikings at one point that I needed to do less. That I needed to go out there and be worse in the preseason because it was creating an atmosphere that was not what they wanted. They don’t want competition between a backup quarterback and a starter. They don’t want any controversy. They don’t want those things, especially when you have a lot of guaranteed money on a guy that is going to play no matter what,” Sloter said.
“I have had people tell me that in order to make it as a backup in the league, year after year after year, you have to play like a backup — and it just was never me. It was never me to not go out there and compete. It was never me to go out there and not feel like, hey, if I’m not the starter, my mindset is I’m going to be the starter someday. I’m going to be better than the starter.
“I was very supportive of the people and understood my situation and my role, but I always had that in the back of my mind of like, we’re here to compete. I’m not here to just lay down and just give people jobs and not make myself look the best that I possibly can. I think had I done that, I probably would still be in the NFL as a backup somewhere.”
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“The lies that were told about me by management at certain teams that I was at — I hesitate to use blackball because I don’t like that term — there were things said about me that made people hesitate to take me on teams that were not true that I had to do some damage control that we ultimately got through, but it altered the trajectory of my career,” Sloter said.
Sloter, 31, has been out of the league since training camp in 2022. He was Case Keenum’s backup in 2017 after Keenum replaced an injured Sam Bradford in Week 2. Cousins arrived in 2018, at which point Sloter was QB3 behind Trevor Siemian. The Vikings cut him during 2019 training camp, and he bounced between the Cardinals, Lions, Bears, Raiders, Vikings and Jaguars over the next four seasons. In the end, he never played in a regular-season game, though he believes he deserved an opportunity.
What prevented him from becoming a starter? In his mind, it was all about money and Spielman preserving his job.
“Not saying I did or didn’t, this is purely hypothetical: If Kyle Sloter is deemed, hey, he’s playing better than Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins, you’re benched. Kyle Sloter, you’re in. Well Kyle Sloter is making $600,000-$700,000, Kirk Cousins just got $84 million guaranteed and now he’s your backup quarterback. Buddy, you’re fired. The GM, you’re out of here. What are you doing?” Sloter said.
Sloter accused Spielman of sabotaging his career.
“And then when Kyle Sloter has potential and an opportunity to go somewhere and we think that he could end up being something, we ship him off or we get him out of here and he gets picked up somewhere else and we call that team and tell them hey he’s doing this, this, this and this. And it’s all lies, so that I don’t resurface and have a career,” he alleged.
“If Kyle Sloter was on the Vikings for minimum and I go somewhere else and turn out to be what I thought I could be — let’s just say I end up being a superstar. If you had me for nothing as an undrafted free agent for minimum and I’m a superstar somewhere else, that GM is getting fired. And they knew it. And I was doing it in Minnesota for three years. The evidence was there and you just ignored it,” Sloter claimed. “And I’m not the first person this happened to. I know I’m sitting here telling my story — there’s 10-20 other guys from just my time in the NFL that I know this has happened to, so it is a league where, yeah, you gotta get lucky, right place, right time as well.”
Sloter didn’t throw all shade at the Vikings. During the interview, he admitted that he learned a lot from Cousins and credited the Vikings for having “some of the best minds” in the NFL.