You don’t have to love it. You don’t even have to like it. But Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins is the greatest of all time at an NFL negotiating table.
Go ahead and give the man a cigar and a sneaker deal because no one can touch him. He’s the Michael Jordan of NFL contract dealings.
Just ask the Washington Commanders.
They made him the first quarterback in NFL history to ever be franchise tagged in back-to-back seasons. Most would have been bothered by the thought of playing without the security of a long-term contract.
But not Cousins.
He saw it as an opportunity to gain even more leverage than he already had over the team. So he bet on himself and played on exorbitant one-year deals without so much as flinching at the negotiating table. The Commanders were completely at his mercy. They could either continue using a ballooning franchise tag every year to keep him under contract or allow him to walk out the door for a third-round compensatory draft pick.
It took them two years to get to the latter decision, and in that time, Cousins laughed his way all the way to the bank with $44 million over the course of two seasons—a $20 million tag in 2016 and $24 million in 2017.
He was playing chess, while they were playing checkers.
Tag! I'm it!
— Kirk Cousins (@KirkCousins8) February 28, 2017
The Commanders got finessed by the master, and it didn’t take long for the Vikings to suffer a similar fate.
Cousins signed a three-year, $84 million fully guaranteed contract to come to Minnesota. It was a historic deal with him being the first quarterback in NFL history to ever sign a multi-year, fully guaranteed contract.
Two extensions later, he’s still laughing his way to the bank after forcing two separate regimes to come to the conclusion that they couldn’t see a future without him.
Former general manager Rick Spielman caved in with a two-year, $66 million extension to keep him and clear up cap space in 2020, and current GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah essentially did the same thing by bumping his 2022 salary and tacking on another $35 million fully guaranteed year to his contract.
Oh, and the Vikings went ahead and threw in a no trade clause as well because we all know Captain Kirk loves his cherries on top.
Extending Kirk Cousins, missing out on a prized interior offensive lineman due to cap issues then signing a DT on the first day of free agency? pic.twitter.com/DQFlpQzfhG
— Luke Braun (@LukeBraunNFL) March 15, 2022
Ever since Cousins came off his rookie deal, all of his contractual years have been fully-guaranteed. He’s a mercenary at the negotiating table with a perfectly succinct and robotic demeanor in the public eye. You’d think he was coached in the arts of public relations under Bill Belichick.
And yet, the reality remains that he’s 59-59-2 in his NFL career with only three postseason appearances—none going beyond the divisional round. He’s a borderline top-10 quarterback being paid like he’s a game-changer.
There’s a big difference between being elite and really good, and Cousins falls somewhere in the latter. He isn’t going to lead a team to a Super Bowl, but he can play an instrumental role on a talented roster capable of leading itself.
Is that the Vikings right now?
No.
How could it be when the team has so much money tied up in a quarterback not named Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen or even some guy named Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback in NFL history, who is returning to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for $25 million and a scoop of avocado ice cream?
Sure, Vikings fans are angry, outraged, annoyed, incensed, fuming—you can use whatever vernacular you want to describe another situation where Cousins gets rich regardless of his team’s success. But keep that anger directed at the front office in Eagan.
You don’t have to love Cousins’ hustle, but you should respect it.
