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NFL contracts can be quite weird, but this one might win the award for most confusing.
The Las Vegas Raiders are signing Kirk Cousins to a five-year deal worth $172 million, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter.
But really, it's much less than that, sort of.
"Kirk Cousins will sign a five-year, $172 million deal with the Raiders that in reality is a one-year, fully-guaranteed $20 million deal that also contains a club option for two years at $80M," Schefter wrote on X on Thursday morning. "The Falcons will pay Cousins $8.7 million this season, the Raiders another $1.3 million and Las Vegas also agreed to pay its new QB a fully-guaranteed $10 million roster bonus on the third day of the 2027 new league year."
It's certainly a different kind of contract than anyone has ever quite signed in the NFL before.
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Why are the Raiders signing Kirk Cousins to a 5-year, $172 million contract?
From the outside, this seems to mostly have to do with void years.
By putting a lot of money in the back of the contract, the Raiders can essentially spread out when they have to pay Cousins.
It's not that all the money is guaranteed, but it's almost like a pre-emptive restructuring. When teams take their current big-money QB contracts each offseason and shift money around, that's a way they can have less salary cap hit in a given season.
The Raiders have sort of done that with Cousins right from the initial contract being signed.
He's going to be the veteran mentor to Fernando Mendoza, whose rookie contract allows the Raiders to shell out just a bit more to get Cousins, too.
But don't worry -- the Raiders won't be paying Cousins anywhere near that sticker price. It's more a matter of contractual procedure.
This post sums up the reality quite well:
Cousins won't sign a five-year, $172 million contract with the Raiders. And you also can't count what he's making from the Falcons as part of the compensation. Let's be real.
It's a one-year, $11.3 million contract. He gets $1.3 million now and $10 million in March. https://t.co/G6mxqNkf2a
Sounds mostly like Cousins' agents wanted Schefter to make the deal sound cool, and the ESPN insider happily obliged.
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