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It's time to bestow a new honor on a handful of NFL legends.
While many of these players do great work on the field, I'm happy to finally give them the credit they deserve for what they've done in fighting some of the most penurious people on the planet: NFL team owners. It's time to induct the inaugural class of players into the Bag Hall of Fame (BHOF).
Now, I need to be very clear here. This isn't an attempt to honor players who were overpaid or didn't deserve the money they made during their time in the NFL. I'd reject that concept in principle: Just about every player, past or present, was or is underpaid relative to the risks they take by playing professional football. There's no fun in poking at backup quarterbacks who were able to collect checks while rarely stepping on the field.
Instead, I want to reward the players who did the best job of maximizing their leverage and getting paid for their ability. Players who pushed holdouts to the next level. Players who bet on themselves and were handsomely rewarded for doing so. Players who even managed to represent themselves in negotiations and pocket millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone to an agent.
For this first class, the selection committee (me) is inducting eight players into what will surely one day be a physical Hall of Fame. Most of the players are still active, but they've already done enough to earn their way into the BHOF without a five-year waiting period. Many of them have won Super Bowls, and a handful are either in the Pro Football Hall of Fame or should end up in Canton someday. That Hall of Fame, though, won't be the only institution honoring them for their work. Here's our first class of players:
ESPN
Kirk Cousins, QB
Calling card: Making the front office so mad it refused to call him "Kirk"
If you explained this concept to an NFL fan and asked them who they thought was worthy of induction, they would probably name Cousins first. About to become the most expensive backup quarterback in NFL history, Cousins has earned more than $294 million in his career and has another $37.5 million in guaranteed money coming from the Falcons before the 2026 season begins. He has been underrated as a reliable passer for most of his career, but it's also fair to say he has never been the best quarterback in football, either.
From 2016 to 2024, nobody took home more cash from NFL teams than Cousins, whose $291.3 million earned was $21 million ahead of the second-place passer (more on that player later). In part, that's because Cousins didn't emerge as early as most quarterbacks. Taken 100 picks after fellow Washington quarterback Robert Griffin III in the 2012 draft, he wasn't much more than an injury fill-in early in his career. He threw 10 picks on 203 pass attempts over his first two seasons. While he was better over an extended stretch starting early in 2016, he finished his third season with a below league-average 50.4 Total QBR.
With the Commanders benching Griffin in 2015 to avoid triggering his $16.2 million fifth-year option (when those options were only guaranteed for injury), Cousins' path to the starting job was cleared. In the final year of his rookie deal, he posted a league-best 69.8 completion percentage, cut his interception rate from 4.7% to 2% and led the Commanders to an unexpected division title. The run ended with a home loss in the playoffs to the Packers, but he had suddenly proven he was an NFL-caliber quarterback.
Team owner Daniel Snyder & Co. weren't as convinced. After briefly negotiating with Cousins before the 2016 season, Washington broke off talks when their offer of a multiyear deal worth $16 million per season was rebuffed. Instead, it used the franchise tag, paying Cousins just under $20 million. It was a reasonable decision given that he had been a solid quarterback for only one year, but it couldn't have helped the relationship between the team and their signal-caller.
Cousins responded with a Pro Bowl campaign, throwing for 4,917 yards with 25 touchdowns while finishing sixth in QBR. Now, one year away from what would have been unrestricted free agency given the outlandish cost of a potential third franchise tag, the two sides seemed to entrench themselves even further. Washington tried to negotiate in public, suggesting that its best offer guaranteed Cousins $53 million. In sharing that information, executive Bruce Allen repeatedly referred to his team's starting quarterback as "Kurt," a slight that would have been inexplicable for every other organization but this one.
Cousins signed a second franchise tag for just under $24 million. After the year, Washington traded for Alex Smith, signaling the end of the Cousins era. It netted a third-round compensatory pick and turned that into running back Bryce Love and guard Wes Martin, who started a combined 10 NFL games. Thirteen different quarterbacks started at least one game for Washington between Cousins' departure and the arrival of Jayden Daniels last season, a stretch in which it went 36-62-1.
Quarterbacks in their 20s with a track record of above-average play and no significant injury history almost never hit free agency, which gave Cousins the ability to dictate terms on the open market. With significant interest from multiple teams, he chose the Vikings over the Jets on what was a massive deal at the time -- three years and $84 million, $82.5 million of which was fully guaranteed. Cousins also landed a no-trade clause and a no-transition tag clause, allowing him to hit free agency again unless the Vikings franchised or extended him.
The Vikings chose to extend Cousins in 2020, giving him another $31 million in guarantees for an additional season in 2021. The following year saw the new Kwesi Adofo-Mensah-led regime pay him $35 million for another year, using the new deal to reduce what had become an onerous cap hit for the signal-caller. Only after 2023, when Cousins tore his Achilles during one of the best seasons of his career, did the Vikings finally extricate themselves, replacing Cousins with Sam Darnold and first-round pick J.J. McCarthy.
Given one more shot at unrestricted free agency as a viable starter, Cousins quickly inked a four-year, $180 million deal with the Falcons. Atlanta's aggressive decision seemed bizarre when it used its first-round pick on Michael Penix Jr. the following month, but Cousins was well-protected. His deal was essentially a one-year pact for $90 million, a two-year deal for $100 million or a three-year contract for $135 million.
With the Falcons promoting Penix to the starting job amid Cousins' struggles last season, it seems likely they'll choose the two-year option. I wouldn't be surprised if Cousins landed some guaranteed money from another team in 2026 if he returns for another season, but even if he retires, he has become the best-compensated free agent in league history. Most of the highest-paid players ever -- such as Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan and Russell Wilson -- earned the majority of their money from extensions with the teams who drafted them or signed new deals after being traded elsewhere. Cousins, currently the sixth-highest-paid player in league history, will finish this Falcons deal having earned more than $285 million from teams that signed him as an unrestricted free agent.
While the salary cap will eventually grow to the point where that figure is topped, the only other player in the same stratosphere in terms of earning money as a free agent (and the extensions that followed) is Drew Brees, who made more than $256 million after signing with the Saints. The only other players who topped $100 million in earnings from teams that signed them as free agents are Ryan Tannehill ($123.4 million) and Ndamukong Suh ($104 million). Is Cousins going to be a Hall of Famer like Brees or Rodgers one day? No. Does he belong in the Bag Hall of Fame? There can be no doubt.
Dak Prescott, QB
Calling card: Getting one or two over on Jerry Jones
Matthew Stafford, QB
Calling card: The last of the great previous-CBA quarterbacks
Joe Flacco, QB
Calling card: Turning one playoff run into two contracts
Darrelle Revis, CB
Calling card: The best cover corner -- and market-setter -- of his generation
Jalen Ramsey, CB
Calling card: Backing up the truck
Deion Sanders, CB
Calling card: The ultimate free agent addition
Laremy Tunsil, OT
Calling card: Doing it his damn self
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/4561...on-sanders
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