No he is not “just a guy” he is an established NFL QB ( who not only got past RGIII but put him out of work ) who has good stats and is a the right age to hit his prime. AlsoI hate the “what has he won” metric. They didnt sign him for what he has won, they signed him for what he can do and the potential he has to get them to the SB. Anyway my point wasnt about whether he is worth the contract now. No one is “worth” that much money, to be realistic. What matters to the Vikings is will he have been worth it 3 years down the road. They are placing a major bet that he will. Like it or not this is the reality of the NFL and free agent QBs. It’s only a massive overpay if it doesn’t pay off. I do hope youre right and it is a massive overpay, because if he works out the Vikings will be a pain in the ass for every team in that division, my Lions included.
how many rings he got
I agree. Dude has 4k yards and 25 TDS per year for 3 years in a row. That qualifies as more than “just a guy”
Cousins is an upgrade for the Vikings. He’s getting market value.
The only real argument against signing him is that it ties up a lot of money and they have a lot of young stars that will need new contracts soon, so they may have to let some of them walk. They could have kept Bridgewater and/or Keenum for less and perhaps kept all the young players.
Kind of crazy that Bradford’s getting a reported $20M from the Cardinals.
Report I heard is that Cousins took a couple million less per year to play for a winner rather than go to Jersey. So yeah, this really is the market for QBs.
Yeah, Cousins is a solid-but-not-quite-elite QB. It’s a good investment, assuming they don’t get hamstrung by the contract. I hope Keenum gets a good shot somewhere else, though.
I suppose Cousins could get better playing in Minnesota, but here’s why he’s JAG IMO and not worth the money. From Barnwell’s grades of the moves on ESPN.
| QB (YEARS) | CMP% | INT% | Y/ATT | RATING | QBR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kirk Cousins (2015-17) | 67.0% | 2.1% | 7.8 | 97.5 | 62.4 |
| Case Keenum (2017) | 67.6% | 1.5% | 7.4 | 98.3 | 69.7 |
Unless you subscribe to Keenum being worth that much (and I doubt many of you do) then Cousins for that money was kinda crazy. You could’ve kept the guy you know for less.
The difference being that Cousins put up pretty much identical numbers 3 years in a row. Keenum was that good just the once. His QBR with the Rams in '16? Something like 37.
Does that make Cousins worth top-notch money? In a totally rational labor market, probably ‘yes’ - because the NFL definition of ‘rational’ for quarterbacks factors in the fact that there are fewer proven starting quarterbacks than there are teams.
Nick Foles played for the Rams too. I think we can easily confirm that Jeff Fisher was one of the most overrated NFL head coaches in the history of the NFL at this point in time and likely almost ruined three QB careers in St. Louis. All three of them landed on their feet in 2017: Foles, Keenum and Goff.
Maybe the reason so many people believe there are so few proven starting QBs is because there even fewer really good head coaching staffs in the NFL?
Case threw for ~3,500 yards, LAST year. Kirk has thrown for over 4000, three years running. With a shit team and mediocre recieving targets. You’ll also see folks quote his career (short) passer rating and other ratings that place him as an elite(ish) QB.
But Dave, as even a Redskins fan, it takes a lot more than that for me to nod my head and say yes when someone asks me if a QB is great. I’m with you and your opinion, I think that is FAR too much to pay for him, I don’t care how much cap room they have this year or if they are frontloading it. It’s insane. Even Tom Brady isn’t fully guaranteed on his contract. In fact, on his 2-year, only 28 million are guaranteed.
So what the Vikes just did is pay the equivalent of Tom Brady’s guaranteed income to Kirk Cousins for three years. He could go out and tear an ACL on day 1 and they have just blow a wad of cash. In fact, if I were Kirk, I would do just that.
“Oh I fell over”
“Oh I fell over again”
Joe Thomas retires. Easily a first-ballot hall-of-famer. He deserved to be on better teams.
Huh, Tyrann Mathieu released by AZ.
Four. Bradford is doing ok. Of all the “get rich quick” books that could published by QBs, his is the one is read.
Craziest free agency ever?
Jeez… yeah… although Bradford’s career after St. Louis didn’t have the highs of either Keenum or Foles and the expected highs of Goff. He has just been really good at getting paid to get hurt.
Eric Ebron released. I’d say he’d be an interesting target for Seattle if they want to replace a TE that can’t block and drops passes with a cheaper model.
Right. And that’s the thing about Football that’s different from all the other leagues IMO, even hockey. Guys just plain get hurt more. They get hurt a LOT more. People who didn’t follow the Eagles all season last year aren’t aware that they had multiple starters, expected big contributors, who ended up done for the season beyond the obvious Wentz injury.
Jason Peters, Caleb Sturgis, Darren Sproles, Chris Maragos, Jordan Hicks… all of them were big names at the start of the season on that team because they were good at what they do, and yet every one of those spots had proper backup except Sturgis, who the Eagles obviously replaced smartly with someone else’s mistaken castoff.
Ronald Darby missed a bunch of games too and their number two draft pick didn’t even play and was on IR all season (Sidney Jones).
If you get an injury to a guy with a guaranteed contract like Cousins has now, as you say, it’s massive, and it’s just sort of ridiculous to think it won’t happen at some point in three years time there. It’s football.
Something is really wrong when Cousins is making more than Drew Brees, too, who just signed for $25 million a year as a discount for the team.
Pretty typical for young players signing their first major contract after their rookie deals (or franchise tags I guess). Once they get that massive payday then there are other concerns for follow-on contracts.
The guarantee is weird. I wonder if it will quietly fail to start a trend and everyone will forget about it.
If it wasn’t guaranteed the signing bonus would have been massive. It’s a six of one kind of thing.
Anyway, it’s the way it should be. Contracts should be guaranteed, given the nature of the game. Enough players walk away from the game with permanent damage as it is. At least pay them for the remainder of the contract when you cut them.
While I don’t think Cousins is JAG (I had to look that up to find out it means Just Another Guy) I do believe he’s an upgrade from Keenum. His consistency has been mentioned upthread and I think that counts for a lot. With a good defense on his side I expect he will do well.
As to whether or not the VIkings overpaid for him, I think yes and no. They definitely paid a lot, and the guaranteed factor is pretty mind-blowing. But I do believe that’s the going rate to solidify your QB position these days. I mean the 49ers paid just a hair less for Jimmy Frickin’ Garoppolo.