Kirk Cousins Reiterates Desire to Stay in Minnesota, Needs to Do One Thing to Make It a Reality
K. Joudry
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Money is king in the NFL. Anyone who thinks otherwise is misguided. One of the preeminent debates surrounding the Vikings is how much money Kirk Cousins should get in his contract. His recent press conference will reignite these debates. Take a look:
Cousins has made a lot of money in his career. In fact, he has made $161,469,288 in his career, per Over the Cap. Anyone with even a tiny bit of sense would have more money than he/she could ever spend in a lifetime. In other words, Mr. Cousins shouldn’t be going hungry anytime soon.
Next year, Kirk Cousins will take up a massive portion of the Vikings cap due to his contract swelling to $45 million. Keep in mind that the overall cap is $208.2 million. Cousins’ cap hit, then, represents 21.2% of the cap. Paying one player out of 53 that much money is craziness.
If Kirk Cousins is really serious about sticking around Minnesota, he’ll take a sizeable pay cut. He is merely one out of 53 players. Now, QBs can have a disproportionate impact on a team’s chances, largely contributing to some oversized cap hits. The issue, of course, is that the QB needs to play at an elite level to justify such a large expense. Anything less than spectacular will doom a team’s chances when the QB is eating up so much available cap room.
In the same press conference, Cousins was asked to address why the team lost so many close games. He largely eludes the question, hiding behind a partial truth by suggesting it’s complicated and there isn’t just one answer. Of course, every game is different, but one thing that isn’t different is that the most talented teams tend to have success.
The NFL salary cap can be manipulated and re-worked in any number of ways. Be that as it may, the cap is still real. Money spent on a certain player means money that can’t be spent on another. That’s true for either the present roster or future roster. At some point, the cap will take the financial hit. The 2022 finances are looking pretty snug because of all the past shenanigans, so something has to give.
The path forward for Kirk Cousins is relatively straightforward: return to the negotiating table to insist on a contract adjustment. If you toss in the money he has made with endorsements and future salary, Cousins will end his NFL career having made hundreds of millions of dollars. It would be no exaggeration to say that this makes him among the wealthiest people to ever live.
At some point, it’s time to lay aside pride for the greater good of a team. Who cares if you’re a highly-paid QB when your team is always average? In the past, Cousins has expressed frustration at seeing other QBs win while he has mostly put forth mediocre records. A surefire way to help reverse this trend is to give the team more financial flexibility. Doing so will, in turn, allow the team to attract talent that can actually help the team win.
I get that it’s unlikely to happen. So far, Cousins has shown little desire to play below market value. If winning is the actual goal, though, he’ll follow Tom Brady’s lead and play for below market value.
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