Eighty-four million dollars doesn’t buy you what it used to.

Vikings fans have to be asking themselves if they’re happy with what quarterback Kirk Cousins has delivered since the Vikings handed him that ill-advised three-year contract that’s paying him a guaranteed $28 million per year.

Granted, Cousins cannot win games by himself. Football is a team game, after all. But when a team pays its quarterback $84 million guaranteed, it needs him to not only perform well, but raise the level of play of the players around him.

And, through 20 games as a Viking entering Sunday’s game against the Giants at MetLife Stadium, there hasn’t been a lot of evidence that Cousins is doing that.

The Vikings, who are coming off Sunday’s 16-6 loss to the Bears in a moribund offensive performance against a team that lost its starting quarterback (Mitchell Trubisky) early in the game and won with backup Chase Daniel, are 2-2 this season and they’re 10-9-1 with Cousins at quarterback.

For the $84 million the Vikings are paying Cousins along with the $81 million over five years they’re paying receiver Stefon Diggs and the $64 million over four years they’re paying receiver Adam Thielen, Minnesota ranks last in the NFL in passing first downs per game and 31st in the league in passing yards per game.

And now, cracks in the foundation are beginning to form in Minnesota, where Vikings players and fans are growing frustrated as they come to the conclusion that, though Cousins is a good quarterback, there’s something missing. He doesn’t appear to have been blessed with the clutch gene based on his lagging performance in big spots and against the better teams in the league.

The loss to Chicago left Cousins with an alarming 4-27 career record against teams with a winning record. After the game, Thielen delivered a thinly veiled criticism of his quarterback, who overthrew him on a critical third-and-long in the first half that would have resulted in a touchdown.

“At some point, you’re not going to be able to run the ball for 180 yards, even with the best running back in the NFL,’’ Thielen told reporters, referring to Vikings dynamic running back Dalvin Cook. “That’s when you have to be able to throw the ball. You have to be able to hit the deep balls.’’

As is typical for Cousins, his statistics against the Bears were OK — 233 yards, no interceptions and a .750 completion percentage. But Cousins always has been a stat compiler who doesn’t make the clutch plays that win the big games.

If he were a professional tennis player, he’d be the guy who has 35 aces in a match with his big serve, but loses because he couldn’t win the key points. If he were a golfer, he’d be the guy who led the tournament field in driving distance, but failed to win the tournament because he never made a clutch putt.

Against the Bears, Cousins fumbled twice, losing one of them in a red zone, and he missed on the big plays, like the one to Thielen.

“He made a great read of finding me open, and just didn’t complete the pass,” Thielen told reporters. “It’s as simple as that.”

That comment was simply damning.

“Yeah, it’s a throw I want back,” Cousins told reporters.

The problem is, Cousins’ career is littered with throws he failed to complete in big spots, throws he’d like to have back. In the Vikings’ Week 2 loss to the Packers, a Cousins overthrown pass in the end zone late in the fourth quarter clinched a 21-16 win for the Packers when the Viking were in position to win.

Bottom line: Cousins has not proven himself to be a difference-maker. He wasn’t in Washington and he’s yet to be one in Minnesota. And when you pay a quarterback $84 million, he has to be a difference-maker.