In the NFL, top-end performance is often rewarded with elite compensation, and the record of the highest paid players in league history is littered with names of the best to ever play the game. Within the top five alone, all are Super Bowl champions, players who dominated the league for many seasons. Except for one. 

 

Kirk Cousins is the THIRD highest paid player of ALL TIME. On a list with Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Drew Brees, sits a quarterback with a 1-4 record in the playoffs. This begs the following paradox: If Kirk wasn’t good enough to win, why did he keep getting paid? Or, if he was good enough to get a historically significant paycheck, why didn’t he ever win anything? Let’s break it down. 

 

Kirk Cousins entered the league in 2012 as the 102nd overall pick out of Michigan State. Drafted to be the Washington Redskins’ backup, he was selected to sit behind fellow rookie (and second overall pick) Robert Griffin III from Baylor. Cousins started his career on the bench, but took over when injuries derailed Griffin III’s career. 

 

Cousins started five games in 2014 before becoming the full-time starter in 2015 when he made the playoffs and earned PFWA Most Improved Player award honors. Unable to reach a long-term contract agreement, Cousins was franchise tagged the following season, following up with a career year that included a winning record and a Pro Bowl appearance. The next year, Cousins was tagged again before being released at the conclusion of the 2017 season. 

 

After his Redskins tenure, Cousins joined a Minnesota Vikings squad fresh off an NFC Championship loss to the Eagles, signing the first-ever fully guaranteed contract. With the Vikings, Cousins went 50-37-1, threw for over 23,000 yards, and 171 passing touchdowns to only 55 interceptions with a 101.2 passer rating. In many regards, Cousins was among the statistically elite, his only issue being what made him worth mentioning in the first place: his contract.

 

With the exception of Patrick Mahomes, no team has ever won the Super Bowl with one player taking up more than 12% of the total salary cap. Mahomes, the only outlier, is an elite, game-changing talent in contention to challenge Tom Brady as the greatest player of all time. However, many teams have won with less-than-elite passers of the football. Look no further than Jeff Hostetler, Brad Johnson, Jim McMahon, Nick Foles, and Joe Flacco. Quarterbacks can be buoyed by elite defense, powerful run games, and strong lines, but not if they have no money to spend on high-level talent. 

 

During his six years in Minnesota, the Vikings spent an average 13.2% of the total salary cap on one player. Kirk Cousins, while solid, was never enough of a game changer to drag his club to the promised land on his own, and the Vikings were never financially stable enough to build a superteam around him. He joined the Vikings in 2018, viewed as the missing piece on a team that had reached the NFC Championship game the year prior. A clear upgrade to the journeyman who captured lightning in a bottle, Case Keenum, the Vikings felt the Illinois native was well worth the record-breaking, fully guaranteed contract. But despite paying the man more than an eighth of their total available funds for six years, the franchise was left only a single playoff win richer.

 

Cousins, on the other hand, masterfully maximized his personal leverage, becoming the third highest paid player of all time. In doing so he highlighted a fundamental truth about the NFL: success is all about timing. Whether that means making the playoffs, winning a Super Bowl, or earning a hefty extension, timing is everything. The difference between a slump in a player’s third year versus their fourth or “contract” year could cost them millions of dollars and potentially their job. Similarly, a team’s decision on when to invest in a player could be the difference between a championship and an expensive rebuild. In the case of Cousins, teams have consistently invested time and resources before realizing that they’d bought high. This pattern of decision making is what’s put guaranteed money into his pocket while preventing his teams from bringing in the kinds of impact players required to win a Super Bowl.

 

We’ve seen over and over again that the teams who find success are the ones who time their signings in a way that maximizes their potential. The only problem with this approach is it involves risk and anxiety and Cousins has proven to be willing and able to take advantage of NFL teams’ unease. By continually being a security blanket and offering up his services as a ‘sure thing,’ Kirk Cousins has made himself one of the highest paid players of all time.