Daniel Jones contract: Path to $45 million follows Kirk Cousins’ footsteps

Kirk Cousins once signed the biggest contract in NFL history

Kirk Cousins, when he signed his three-year, $84 million deal with the Vikings in 2018, had the highest average annual salary in NFL history ($28 million).

At the time, Cousins had appeared in a single playoff game, and lost. He was a quality regular season quarterback who, thanks to both roster construction around him and his own faults, hadn’t excelled in the postseason.

Truthfully, he still hasn’t, with a career playoff record of 1-3 as a starter.

So, how did he get there?

Well, before setting records with the largest AAV in NFL history at the time, Cousins first set records becoming the first quarterback to get the franchise tag in two consecutive seasons. The Washington Commanders (then named something else) faced a similar predicament that the Giants now face with Jones.

Cousins was, again, a quality regular season quarterback, but the playoff results were virtually nonexistent. There wasn’t any direct proof that the team could win a Super Bowl with Cousins, and as such, committing long-term funds to him was an untenable prospect.

Washington hovered around .500 with Cousins in those two years (15-16 with Cousins as a starter) while Cousins threw 52 touchdowns, 25 interceptions, and totaled over 9,000 yards across the two seasons.

Then, when the Vikings came calling, Cousins leaped at the idea of the massive contract that was offered to him. Who wouldn’t?

Those two years of one-year deals with the franchise tag ultimately helped Cousins prove that he could be individually successful, even if he wasn’t winning a significant amount of games or taking his team deep in the playoffs. That alone was enough to convince a team he was worth a ton of money to build around and give them the facts they needed to rationalize a future with him under center.

It’s a pathway Jones can now follow, in a way…