How much is a Cousins worth?

I am a big Vikings fan. I am not a big Chiefs fan but I can also recognize that Patrick Mahomes is the next heir apparent to Tom Brady. And in that sense, my team-well let’s just put it this way-my damn team (you like that?! I hate when fans say it’s MY TEAM as if we do anything but root for it) will need a new quarterback that has something that could be an heir apparent to Tom Brady because Kurt Cousins was NOT it, and is NOT it anymore.

News recently broke that Kurt cousins signed a four-year deal with the Atlanta Falcons were something close to $200 million. I think it was actually $180 million. This put this puts Kirks career earnings into a general estimation of $400 million. that’s a lot of money and it’s interesting to note that for Kirks career, $400 million buys one playoff victory. Patrick Mahomes has 15 playoff victories and three Super Bowls under his belt and he just signed a $500 million contract within the past few years. $500 million is a pretty rich one to be true, but it’s also a 10 year contract with a bunch of options. If you were to break it down right now, Patrick Mahomes has earned about $163 million from his contract. You could even take the full $500 million of his contract and divide that by the 15 playoff victories and you’d get somewhere around $33 million per playoff victory. If you took the 163 million divided that by 15 you get somewhere close to 9 million per playoff victory for the Chiefs. That seems like a pretty good deal-$9 million for a quarterback to earn a playoff victory. That’s pretty good as opposed to paying Kirk Cousins $400 million for just one playoff win.

Even Aaron Rodgers has a Super Bowl win which can justify his $350 million dollar earnings. He also has plenty of playoff victories too, at a 12-10 record. If you did the math there, A-aron has made a cool $342 million, meaning his 12 wins have been worth $28 million a pop. A bit high, but he has the win, which matters. Let’s go further and break down Brady’s career earnings-$332 million, and a 35-13 playoff record. That’s back down to $9 million a playoff victory.

Joe Montana made $25 million in his career, and adjusted for dollars in 1994, which isn’t that long ago is around $52 million. If you divide his playoff record out-it’s 16-7, and you get a paltry $3 million per victory which is a steal. It’s a different era to be sure, but it’s also worth nothing that Montana, Mahomes, Brady, and Rodgers have all put their team in the playoffs more than 5 times, which is how many time Kirk has lead his teams there. He’s a 1-4 in the playoffs. Even if you paid for each playoff berth, you’re looking at $82 million a game, which is not the value an elite QB brings to the position. That’s being overpaid.

I wasn’t necessarily the biggest fan of Cousins coming to Minnesota because I always thought that they took a chance by not letting their previous quarterback, Case Keenum, you know the guy that threw that last second touchdown to win over the Saints? You know, THAT guy, yeah. We didn’t give him a new contract and let him take the reins for a while even though he came in and led us (there’s that talk again) to a 13 and 3 record. Matter ‘o fact, we shipped him and THAT wide receiver out and over the next six years with Cousins we’ve only managed one playoff victory. We could have used him to get a new QB ready with actual draft potential, but instead we went with Kirk. So Kirk better thank his agent because one of them is really doing their job to ensure that that guy gets paid. I mean I like him-from his documentary, from his demeanor and “aw shucks” type of personality. I really liked him after I watched Peyton’s fabulous production, but I still didn’t think Kirk is gonna be the one to lead the Vikings to the promised land. The Bills probably have a better shot to win it than the Vikings and that’s when hell freezes over.

If you were doing Moneyball with football, you know that statistician value based calculation of what a player brings to the team, Kirk brings great stats to himself, but Kirk does not equal winning trophies. Mahomes and Brady are rivaling the value meter with hall of fame success. Who knows if Pat restructures to keep teammates around to win more- it seems like a good idea, but money is money as Kirk well knows. Good luck Atlanta, I do hope they do well enough to choke on a wide left field goal in the NFC championship game.