On Monday night, I was explaining to my wife the bizarre situation in Minnesota, where a championship-caliber defense has been paired with an offense that would have trouble scoring a touchdown in the lower divisions of college football.

She said, “Is Fran Tarkenton still around?”

Actually, he is. And the end result to the expedited search came from the Tarkenton playbook: The Vikings brought back a former Vikings quarterback in trading with the Raiders for Kirk Cousins.

On Tuesday, Tarkenton gushed about the return of Cousins. “I think it’s the greatest thing that could have happened to us,” Tarkenton told Darren Wolfson of KSTP. “We were lost. We were winning on defense. We had no offense. We had no quarterback. And now we’ve got Kirk coming back, who is having a great year. He’s a great player. He’s a better person than player. Our team should lift up now. And we’re in the best division in football. Our defense has kept us in the hunt.

“And having Kirk — I cannot tell you how happy I am for the Vikings, for the fans, for the Wilfs, and for all the players and the old-timers like myself. We’ve got a chance with Kirk Cousins.”

Tarkenton spent 1961 through 1966 with the Vikings before returning from 1972 through 1978. And, as it turns out, his comments about Cousins weren’t the only news he made this week.

Tarkenton apparently earned a mere $1.2 million during his entire 18-year NFL career. But that was just the starting point. He has amassed enough of a fortune in the business world to recently buy — at age 86 — a $51.89 million home in Palm Beach.

Tarkenton blazed the trail for today’s former quarterbacks who work even harder in retirement. He was the first NFL player to host Saturday Night Live, and his TV career included a co-hosting gig on That’s Incredible and a four-year stint in the Monday Night Football booth.

The big money came in the business world, specifically computer software. He also has made many millions as an early investor in Apple.

And, if you watch the clip, you’ll see that Tarkenton still has a verbal and mental fastball.

The return of Cousins definitely conjures memories of Tarkenton’s second act in Minnesota, which resulted in three Super Bowl appearances.

The Vikings would be thrilled if, with Cousins back in the fold, they could manage just one.