Former Spain Park High School star Nick Mullens will return to back up quarterback Kirk Cousins for the Minnesota Vikings in the 2023 season, the NFL team has announced.

Scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent at 3 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Mullens will stay with the Vikings for a two-year contract extension worth $9 million with a $3.1 million signing bonus, $6 million in guaranteed money and $1 million in added playing-time incentives, reports indicate.

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Mullens played in four games for Minnesota in 2022 after the Vikings acquired him in a trade with the Las Vegas Raiders on Aug. 22.

Eight days before the trade, Mullens ran two series in the Raiders’ 26-20 preseason victory over the Vikings. He completed 7-of-9 passes for 94 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions as Las Vegas moved 79 yards in 10 plays and 60 yards in 15 plays for touchdowns.

With Minnesota in 2022, Mullens completed 21-of-25 passes for 224 yards with one touchdown and one interception in his sixth NFL season.

At Spain Park in Hoover, Mullens won the Gatorade Alabama Football Player of the Year Award for the 2012 season, when he threw for 3,649 yards and 40 touchdowns.

At Southern Miss, Mullens set records for career, single-season and single-game passing yards and career, single-season and single-game touchdown passes. Mullens won Conference USA’s Offensive Player of the Year Award for the 2015 season.

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Mullens entered the NFL as an undrafted rookie in 2017, and he spent that season on the 49ers’ practice squad. Over the next three seasons, Mullens started 16 games when Jimmy Garoppolo was sidelined by injuries.

The 49ers started the 2018 season with Garoppolo at quarterback, but he suffered a season-ending injury in the third game. When Garoppolo’s replacement, C.J. Beathard, came up with a sore wrist, San Francisco put Mullens in the lineup, and he started the remainder of the season.

After he became the third player in NFL history with at least 250 passing yards and three touchdown passes without an interception in his NFL debut in a 34-3 victory over the Raiders on Nov. 1, 2018, Mullens completed 176-of-274 passes for 2,277 yards with 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions for a 90.8 passer rating. San Francisco had a 3-5 record with Mullens at quarterback after going 1-7 in its first eight games in 2018.

In 2019, Garoppolo started every game for San Francisco, which won the NFC championship and played in Super Bowl LIV. Mullens took seven snaps and didn’t throw a pass in 2019.

In 2020, Mullens again started eight games in place of Garoppolo. Mullens completed 211-of-326 passes for 2,437 yards with 12 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

Mullens’ 2020 season ended prematurely when he sustained an elbow injury in San Francisco’s 14th game. The 49ers did not re-sign Mullens, and he joined the Philadelphia Eagles as a free agent in the offseason.

The Cleveland Browns signed Mullens on Sept. 1 after he had been released by the Eagles. With Baker Mayfield and Case Keenum on reserve/COVID-19, Mullens started his only game of 2021 in a 16-14 loss to Las Vegas on Dec. 20, when he completed 20-of-30 passes for 147 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions.

That brought Mullens’ career stats to 407-of-630 passing for 4,861 yards with 26 touchdowns and 22 interceptions in 20 games, including 17 starts. Only eight quarterbacks in NFL history had more passing yards after their first 17 starts than Mullens.

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.