Vikings players are back at the TCO Center in Eagan continuing their voluntary workout program.

Click the video box above to watch Kirk Cousins’ press conference from the TCO Center on Wednesday afternoon. Click the video box below to watch press conferences with Brian O’Neill, Akayleb Evans and Andrew Booth.

This was the first time Kirk Cousins has spoken to the Twin Cities media since last season ended.

Cousins was asked about playing into the final year of his contract in 2023, with no re-structuring or extension in the offseason.

“I think you’re always looking to the future,” Cousins said. “You’re always thinking about different options, and I think that everybody’s got to do their due diligence and so I’m looking forward to this year and wanting to go out their and prove it again and do it again and play at the highest level I can, and that’s really where my focus is.”

Cousins continued, sharing a tale reaching back to his high school days about handling an uncertain future.

“You know, I think in this league, there should never be entitlement. You’ve always gotta go play, and teams can go whatever they want to do. That’s their prerogative. You just go to work the best you can, and I’m encouraged and excited because I do think I have a lot of good football ahead of me, so I’ve gotta go out there and earn that, but I feel positive about the future looking forward

“I go back to how this has kind of been a part of my story. I’ll go back even before you probably even know – high school. I remember the Holland Sentinel, our paper in our hometown, asking me my senior year of high school – I’m going into my senior year with no scholarship offers. And there were schools looking at me, definitely, I knew I had a chance, but no scholarship offers. And I walked off the field the last game of my high school career, no scholarship offers. So that whole season, you get the question from the Holland Sentinel, ‘How are you focusing on that? How are you handling that?’

“I learned, you’ve gotta focus on winning football games. And if you win football games and do your part and put your work in, the rest will take care of itself. That certainly happened in my high school career, and then you get to the end of college, the same thing happened my senior year, the same kind of thought – ‘How do you think about the season with the future [uncertain]?’ Just go win football games for Michigan State, and good things will happen. That certainly played out.

“Then, this is my fourth time in this league going into a season with free agency on the horizon – my fourth year after my rookie contract, the two years in Washington after that and then this. So, I would just say that to say, ‘It’s more the norm than the exception.’ I think the exception is that you have something penciled in for future years.

“Most of our locker have no idea what’s coming in three or four months, let alone three or four years or next year. So, I feel like I’m one of the guys, like we’re all in this together. That’s the way this thing works, and I think it’s part of what makes this league great. Because everybody has an edge. Everybody’s working, everybody’s got something to prove. Nobody can operate with entitlement or comfort or put in less than their best, and I think that’s the best thing about our league.”

The voluntary workouts precede the rest of the Vikings offseason program, which includes: Rookie Minicamp, OTAs, Minicamp and Training Camp.