Kirk Cousins’ $172 Million Deal Explained

Former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins has made some good money during his long NFL career. He’s known as a player who always signs fully guaranteed contracts. In fact, the last time his salary wasn’t guaranteed was over a decade ago, in Washington, during the final year of his rookie contract.

On Thursday, he announced that his next stop will be the Las Vegas Raiders, where he’ll mentor the likely first overall pick, Fernando Mendoza.

His deal with his new squad has turned some heads. ESPN’s Adam Schefter revealed the inflated numbers in a tweet, saying:

Comp update: Kirk Cousins will sign a five-year, $172 million deal with the Raiders that in reality is a one-year, fully-guaranteed $20 million deal that also contains a club option for two years at $80M.

The Falcons will pay Cousins $8.7 million this season, the Raiders another $1.3 million and Las Vegas also agreed to pay its new QB a fully-guaranteed $10 million roster bonus on the third day of the 2027 new league year.

And maybe most notably, it also sets another new mark: this will be the 11th straight NFL season in which Cousins’ contract will be fully guaranteed.

He ultimately used a bunch of words to describe a contract that will be shredded in a year. The last four years of the five-year deal are pretty much made up. Cousins will make $20 million for one season. Of that salary, his former team, the Atlanta Falcons, will be on the hook for $8.7 million. Las Vegas will pay the other $11.3 million.

But there’s one caveat that Atlanta can’t be happy about. The roster bonus will be due in March of 2027. Therefore, it doesn’t count against this year’s money he’s owed by Atlanta. Cousins had $10 million of guaranteed money left on his deal when the Falcons released him. He’d make that money whether he’s sitting on a beach or playing for someone else.

These contracts have offset language, however, meaning his new salary will reduce the money the old team has to pay him. The Vikings benefit from that rule multiple times this year. Because the Bengals pay Jonathan Allen more than the Vikings owed him, they no longer owe him that money.

Cousins found a way to get the money from the Falcons, but also make more than they would’ve paid him.

Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio commented, “It seems too easy, too convenient. Cousins’s market value was $20 million. The Raiders found a way to get him there by making the Falcons pay $8.7 million of it. The Falcons, frankly, should be pissed. It’s one thing to sign a guy to a one-year deal for the minimum and to stick his former team with the rest of it, like Tagovailoa and Murray did. It’s another to come up with a way to pay Cousins more than the money he’s owed by the Falcons by bumping some of the guarantee into the next year.”

The Vikings got Kyler Murray for the same $1.3 million while the Arizona Cardinals are stuck with over $35 million. If the Raiders signed Cousins for $5 million, the Falcons would pay the remaining $5 million. If Las Vegas signed Cousins for $10 million or more, Atlanta would owe nothing.

Long story short, the Falcons still owe Cousins $8.7 million of his initial $10 million, while the Raiders pay him the difference. Then, Cousins will get another $10 million next year that doesn’t count towards that Falcons money due to contract magic.

Next offseason, Cousins will likely be released and land on the open market once again, as the two-year. $80 million club option triggers in March and it would be shocking if Cousins played well enough to be worth that.

According to Over the Cap, Cousins ranks third in NFL history in career earnings. He’ll likely be passed by some players who entered the league after him in the near future, but as his earnings appraoch $350 million, he can’t be too mad about that.

Cousins will turn 38 in August.

Editor’s Note: Information from PFF, Over The Cap, and Sports Reference helped with this article.

Janik Eckardt is a German sports nerd, who likes numbers and stats. He chose the Vikings to be his … More about Janik Eckardt