Two interesting nuggets from Kirk Cousins' new contract extension

Earlier today, Kirk Cousins inked a new two year contract extension with the Minnesota Vikings that shifted some monies owed and gave the Vikings new flexibility in free agency this week. On the surface, the terms of the deal are 3-years (1 year remaining + 2 year extension) to the tune of $96 million. $61 million is guaranteed up front with the remaining half being injury guaranteed converting to fully guaranteed at the beginning of the 2021 season.

But there are two maybe minor nuggets that have since been dug up that bode pretty well for the Minnesota Vikings looking into the future.

First, according to Courtney Cronin of ESPN.com, the new deal for Cousins "does not have the same 'no trade clause' within it. Kirk's original deal had a no-trade provision in it which stated that the team could not trade him without prior receiving his consent. According to Cronin, this is no more. It's unclear exactly what is meant when she says that it doesn't have "the same" no trade clause though. There still might be some sort of clause, just not a fully protected clause. Depending on how this all plays out, this could give the Vikings future flexibility with Kirk.

Secondly, here's how the money is laid out in the new deal. According to Albert Breer, Kirk stands to receive a $30M signing bonus, $9.5M base, $500K workout bonus in 2020; $21M in base salary in 2021 and $35M base in 2022. The key here is there's only a $21M hit from the quarterback next season in 2021. This allows the Vikings to have further flexibility in free agency next season allowing the cap to jump up even more by the time that Kirk's $35M comes on the books in 2022. The salary cap has jumped up at least $10M each season every year since 2013 so there's no thinking that's to change going forward.

So within the deal the team gets more flexibility to trade in the future, more money to spend in free agency next season and again defers the big big money until 2022 when the salary cap will be somewhere around $220M.

Nice job Rob Brzezinski and Rick Spielman!