Three years. $84 million. Fully guaranteed.

Those were the terms of the contract the Vikings were more than happy to give Kirk Cousins nine short months ago. After Minnesota’s playoff hopes were dashed with a 24-10 home loss to the Bears, it’s become readily apparent that betting on Cousins was a mistake — a mistake that has closed this talented Vikings team’s Super Bowl window for the length of the deal … and probably long after that.

Minnesota has spent the last few months realizing why Washington had so much trouble committing to Cousins for more than a year at a time. He is merely a solid quarterback whose approach to the game inflates his numbers and, in turn, his price tag.

Take this season. Just looking at the box scores, Cousins appeared to play well in 2018. He completed 70% of his passes and threw for 4,298 yards and 30 touchdowns. Great numbers, right? Well, nearly a third of his completions did not actually improve the Vikings’ chances of scoring. Only Eli Manning threw more failed completions than Cousins did in 2018…

League leaders in unsuccessful completions (i.e. completed passes with negative EPA):

Manning 109 (31% of all completions)

Cousins 107 (27%)

Stafford 99 (29%)

Prescott 98 (30%)

Roethlisberger 96 (23%) Highest rate among all QBs with 100+ completions? Nick Foles at 41%. — Moo (@Moo12152) December 26, 2018

Sunday’s game was a perfect illustration of Cousins ability to produce numbers that don’t really capture how poorly he’s played. He put up a non-disastrous 79.4 passer rating. But anyone watching the game could see the Cousins played an awful game. He walked into sacks, passed up on open receivers downfield to throw to covered ones and couldn’t get close on any of his downfield attempts. His performance was a concentrate made up of all of the bad traits Cousins has been putting on film for years.

One third-down play, in particular, illustrates Cousins’ limitations as a franchise quarterback and play-maker. After working through his initial progressions, Cousins drops his eyes and steps right into a sack rather than attempting to get outside of the pocket to extend the play, which would have allowed him to find Dalvin Cook running wide open in the flat…

Cousins has to try something there. A pump fake, a shoulder feint, some kind of an attempt to elude the defender and make a play. That’s what quarterbacks making $28 million a season have to do to earn their keep. During the telecast, Fox analyst Troy Aikman said coaches had encouraged Cousins to try to be more mobile in order to put more pressure on the defense; he scrambled only once on Sunday. Maybe next year.

The Vikings offensive performance Sunday was a frustrating one. And the frustration was perfectly encapsulated by an exchange between Adam Thielen and his quarterback, during which Cousins tells the star receiver he doesn’t have “10 seconds in the pocket”…

Frustrations sarting to set in for the #Vikings. Kirk Cousins says “I don’t have 10 seconds." – Adam Thielen doesn't care. pic.twitter.com/lCtbIkXzQQ — NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) December 30, 2018

Cousins is correct: He does not have 10 seconds in the pocket. But he could do a much better job of avoiding sacks and buying time for his receivers to shake free. Cousins has never had that in his game. He’s never been a quarterback who can transcend what’s around him and make plays out of structure. He has always been a product of what’s around him, which is why so many were reluctant to anoint Cousins as a quarterback worth building around.

Cousins is not the root of the Vikings’ offensive problems. Minnesota’s offensive line has been bad and the running game has been ineffective. But Cousins’ enormous price tag has to be factored in. The Vikings had the resources to improve the blocking but chose, instead, to pour all of that money into Cousins with the hope that adding a Pro Bowl-level quarterback would cover up the team’s deficiencies. As the Vikings learned in 2018, Cousins is not capable of playing at a Pro Bowl-level without ideal conditions around him.

So what about 2019? Well, Cousins’ cap hit jumps $5 million up to $29 million. And, according to OverTheCap.com, only the Jaguars and Eagles will enter the offseason with less cap space than Minnesota. So, really, the Vikings’ only viable option is to run this thing back again next season. There just isn’t enough money to add a difference-making free agent and the team owns only five draft picks in 2019. Essentially, they are now stuck with this team that has now proven two years in a row that it is not good enough.

The Vikings do have a possible out but it would require two unlikely things to occur: (1) They’d have to find a team willing to deal for Cousins’ bloated contract, and (2) they’d need Cousins to be willing to waive the no-trade provision that was included in his contract, per NFL.com. Perhaps teams like the Jaguars and Broncos, both of whom seem to think they’re a quarterback away from contending, will give up draft picks for the right to overpay Cousins, but it’s unlikely Cousins will voluntarily leave Minnesota for lesser teams.

If general manager Rick Spielman can somehow con a team into taking on Cousins’ deal, the Vikings would save $26 million this offseason and be on the hook for only $3 million in dead money with the suckers Cousins’ new team taking on the $57 million remaining on the final two years of his deal.

Cutting him would not provide the same cap relief. The Vikings would be saddled with $60 million in dead money if they cut him this offseason. The number drops to $31 million the following offseason. This is why NFL teams aren’t in the business of handing out fully guaranteed deals.

Barring a trade, Minnesota is stuck with Cousins for the next two seasons. That’s two more seasons of the Vikings struggling to keep pace in a loaded NFC and two more seasons before the front office is afforded the financial wiggle room to reshape this roster into a Super Bowl contender. That’s not happening with Cousins on the books.