Kirk Cousins has made more money than Tom Brady. The 37-year-old quarterback’s $20 million fully guaranteed deal with the Las Vegas Raiders pushes his career earnings past $341 million, eclipsing Brady’s $332.96 million.
Brady won seven Super Bowls, and Cousins has won just one playoff game. The disparity says everything about how Cousins built his fortune: not through championships, but through perfectly timed leverage and an unwillingness to take less than market value.
How Kirk Cousins Built His Fortune Through Guaranteed Deals
The Raiders signing reunites Cousins with offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak, who coached him in Minnesota from 2019 to 2021. He’ll serve as the bridge quarterback while projected first overall pick Fernando Mendoza develops behind him.
Cousins’ path to becoming one of the highest-paid players in NFL history started with a bet on himself that no team was willing to match.
Washington franchise-tagged him in consecutive years, paying him $19.953 million in 2016 and $23.94 million in 2017 after the two sides couldn’t agree on long-term terms. He became the first quarterback in league history to play on the franchise tag in back-to-back seasons.
ESPN’s Field Yates put Cousins’ achievement in perspective. “When accounting for the $20M fully guaranteed money Kirk Cousins will now make, he will soon pass Tom Brady for the second-most money made by a player in NFL history,” Yates wrote on X. “The man is a first ballot Hall of Famer in the business of the NFL.”
When Cousins finally hit free agency in 2018, the Vikings signed him to a fully guaranteed three-year, $84 million contract. It was the first fully guaranteed deal of its kind for an NFL quarterback.
Minnesota extended him twice more, adding a two-year, $66 million extension in 2020 and a one-year, $35 million deal in 2022. He made roughly $185 million with the Vikings alone.
Atlanta then signed him to a four-year, $180 million contract with $100 million guaranteed in March 2024. The Falcons shocked the league six weeks later by drafting Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall. Cousins started 2024, got benched for Penix in Week 16, and collected approximately $100 million for 24 games in Atlanta before his release.
Tom Brady’s Role in Bringing Cousins to the Raiders
The irony of Cousins passing Brady isn’t lost on the Raiders’ ownership group. The seven-time Super Bowl champion purchased a 5% minority stake in Las Vegas in October 2024, and owner Mark Davis said at the time that Brady could “help us select a quarterback in the future and potentially train him as well.”
Davis tried to sign Brady himself in 2020 before the quarterback chose Tampa Bay. Now Brady’s team has brought in the man who surpassed his career earnings without ever reaching a Super Bowl.
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In 10 games for the Falcons last season, Cousins threw for 1,721 yards, 10 touchdowns, and five interceptions while completing 61.7% of his passes. According to PFSN’s QB Impact Metric, he finished last season as the 30th-ranked quarterback in the league with an impact score of 71.1.
Despite a disappointing season, Cousins will be an upgrade over Geno Smith, who started for the Raiders last year and ranked 34th among quarterbacks with an impact score of 68.6.
Cousins will likely start while Mendoza learns from the sideline. Kubiak told reporters at the Annual League Meeting that he’d prefer his rookie quarterback “be able to learn behind somebody” rather than start immediately.
That model worked for Kansas City, where Alex Smith started 15 games in 2017 while Patrick Mahomes watched. Mahomes won MVP the following year.
The Raiders aren’t expecting that trajectory from Mendoza. But they’re paying Cousins $20 million to give their franchise quarterback time to develop while providing a veteran presence that understands the system.
Whether that translates to wins remains uncertain. What’s guaranteed is that Cousins will cash another check, extending a streak that now spans 11 consecutive seasons on fully guaranteed contracts.
