{"id":18607,"date":"2026-02-27T11:16:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/2026\/02\/27\/kirk-cousins-is-the-nfls-fourth-highest-earner-ever-and-he-has-exactly-one-playoff-victory\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T11:16:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:16:57","slug":"kirk-cousins-is-the-nfls-fourth-highest-earner-ever-and-he-has-exactly-one-playoff-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/2026\/02\/27\/kirk-cousins-is-the-nfls-fourth-highest-earner-ever-and-he-has-exactly-one-playoff-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk Cousins Is The NFL&#8217;s Fourth-Highest Earner Ever\u2014And He Has Exactly One Playoff Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Carving out a lucrative career in the NFL requires a combination of talent, timing and luck. It doesn&#8217;t hurt to be a quarterback either. In fact, the 16 highest-earning players of all time have played the position, including several currently active players.<\/p>\n<p>There are instantly recognizable names among the top five quarterbacks. There&#8217;s Matthew Stafford, the league&#8217;s reigning MVP. Aaron Rodgers, who has been in the league for 21 years. Tom Brady, possibly the greatest of all time. Even Russell Wilson, who has fallen off in recent years, had an impressive season with the Seattle Seahawks that included back-to-back trips to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>But one name on the list isn&#8217;t like the others in terms of postseason success: Kirk Cousins. With nearly $322 million in career salary, he is the fourth-highest earner in NFL history (and will likely surpass Brady, who is in third place). However, they have only won one playoff game.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_398013\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-398013\" class=\"lozad size-full wp-image-398013\" src=\"https:\/\/umang.pk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Kirk-Cousins-Is-The-NFLs-Fourth-Highest-Earner-Ever\u2014And-He-Has.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"623\" onerror=\"this.width=\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-398013\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cindy Ord\/Getty Images for SiriusXM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the full breakdown of the top five winners, along with their achievements:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Matthew Stafford, $408.3 million: <\/strong>1 Super Bowl appearance, 1 Super Bowl win, 1 MVP, 3 Pro Bowls, 1 All-Pro, 7 playoff wins<\/li>\n<li><strong>Aaron Rodgers, $394.8 million: <\/strong>1 Super Bowl appearance, 1 Super Bowl win, 4 MVPs, 10 Pro Bowls, 5 All-Pros, 11 playoff wins<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tom Brady, $333 million: <\/strong>10 Super Bowl appearances, 7 Super Bowl wins, 3 MVPs, 15 Pro Bowls, 6 All-Pros, 35 playoff wins<\/li>\n<li><strong>Kirk Cousins, $321.7 million: <\/strong>4 Pro Bowls, 1 playoff victory<\/li>\n<li><strong>Russell Wilson, $316.9 million: <\/strong>2 Super Bowl appearances, 1 Super Bowl win, 10 Pro Bowls, 1 All-Pro, 9 playoff wins<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, Brady distorts the overall competition quite a bit with the ridiculous number of 35 playoff wins. But over 14 seasons in Washington, Atlanta and Minnesota, teams led by Cousins \u200b\u200bhave made the playoffs just four times. The only victory came in 2019, a 26-20 overtime upset over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC wild card round. Cousins \u200b\u200bfinished that game 19-for-31 with 242 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his solid career numbers (44,700 yards with a 66.7 completion percentage, 298 touchdowns and 131 interceptions), Cousins&#8217; teams simply haven&#8217;t had much success. Not all of that depends on him, of course. Some of those years in Minnesota and Washington came with minimal expectations (which Cousins \u200b\u200beven surpassed early in Washington), and the situation in Atlanta was a disaster almost as soon as Cousins \u200b\u200bgot there. The Falcons selected a quarterback with their first-round pick shortly after signing Cousins.<\/p>\n<p>However, Cousins \u200b\u200bhas been a model case study for astute negotiations. After leaving Washington to sign with Minnesota, Cousins \u200b\u200bagreed to a fully guaranteed three-year, $84 million contract. He later signed a two-year, $66 million extension with the team, and then a one-year, $35 million extension. These shorter contracts allowed him to earn a higher annual salary.<\/p>\n<p>Cousins \u200b\u200btore his Achilles tendon midway through the 2023 season and the Vikings made it clear they were not going to re-sign him. However, he was able to point to his previous performance and recovery as he looked to join other teams. The Atlanta Falcons, desperate for good quarterback play since Matt Ryan retired, offered Cousins \u200b\u200ba whopping $180 million over four seasons, with $100 million guaranteed.<\/p>\n<p>Obviously, back-to-back 8-9 seasons and a public hot seat aren&#8217;t what Cousins \u200b\u200bhad in mind when he joined Atlanta. But that hasn&#8217;t stopped him from making incredible amounts of money with the team. That&#8217;s a skill only the best of the best possess.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Carving out a lucrative career in the NFL requires a combination of talent, timing and luck. It doesn&#8217;t hurt to be a quarterback either. In fact, the 16 highest-earning players of all time have played the position, including several currently active players. There are instantly recognizable names among the top five quarterbacks. There&#8217;s Matthew Stafford, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[48843,48844,48845,48846,15201,16195],"tags":[48838,48839,48840,48841,48842],"class_list":["post-18607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aaron-rodgers","category-kirk-cousins","category-matthew-stafford","category-russell-wilson","category-sports-news","category-tom-brady","tag-aaron-rodgers","tag-kirk-cousins","tag-matthew-stafford","tag-russell-wilson","tag-tom-brady"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/umang.pk\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}