Is Kirk Cousins contract actually a steal for Vikings in exploding QB market?

Kirk Cousins’ contract with the Minnesota Vikings might actually be somewhat of a steal now.

With an exploding quarterback market, Kirk Cousins’ deal with the Minnesota Vikings gets even better by the day.

Cousins is under contract with the Vikings for the next two seasons. It is a fully-guaranteed deal, one worth $35 million in annual salary. He has a roster bonus of $10 million for 2022 and $20 million for 2023. There are two dummy years baked into it to spread the money out for 2024 and 2025 that void automatically. He also has a no-trade clause as the Vikings’ starting quarterback.

With Kyler Murray just getting paid, and Lamar Jackson about to, the Vikings are in a terrific spot.

Minnesota Vikings: Kirk Cousins’ contract is getting better with every new deal

Yes, the Vikings had to pay a premium for Cousins because that is the going rate for a Pro Bowl-caliber passer. However, his deals with the Vikings have never been all that long. We are talking about a three-year deal that helped bring him over from Washington, as well as the two-year contract he signed after that. Minnesota could also get out of the Cousins business in 2024…

As with Murray, and eventually Jackson, as well as whoever is next in line to get paid, all it does is diminish Cousins’ current deal with the Vikings. The salary cap will continue to grow, thus allowing the Vikings to allocate even resources towards building a quality football team around Cousins. Furthermore, Cousins will be a far-less expensive, top-12 quarterback when compared to Murray.

Of course, this could all be a moot point if Cousins agrees to another one-year, fully-guaranteed extension like he did last year. Though Minnesota may not ever get to a Super Bowl with Cousins as its quarterback, nobody has been able to do that in the Twin Cities since the legendary Fran Tarkenton. All the while, Cousins’ contract becomes an even better deal in this exploding market.

Every team gets the same amount of cap space, but it is up to each of them on how to allocate it.