The Minnesota Vikings are reportedly signing free agent quarterback Kirk Cousins to a three-year contract worth around $86 million. And the entire thing is fully guaranteed.

This deal has some implications for the Eagles, so let’s break it down.

1 - Kirk Cousins is staying in the NFC

The Vikings are one of the biggest threats to the Eagles in the NFC. Relatively, at least.

I mean, they were at least scheduled to play in the 2018 NFC Championship Game. It’s too bad for them that they never showed up outside of their first drive and got blown out by a final score of 38 to 7. Then the Eagles won the Super Bowl in Minnesota’s home stadium.

Cousins is an upgrade on Case Keenum. Cousins has also given the Eagles some troubles in the past, except for this year when the Birds swept Washington.

Is Cousins really worth all that money, though? Consider:

I’m not even the biggest #QBWinz guy, but it’s at least a little funny how THIS is the dude who received an unprecedented quarterback contract, right?

Anyway, the Eagles will play the Vikings during the 2018 regular season. It could be as soon as the season opener on Thursday, September 6, when Philadelphia will raise their Super Bowl banner.

Note that former Eagles quarterback coach and current Vikings offensive coordinator John DeFilippo will be calling the plays for Minnesota.

2 - Nick Foles’ market just opened up

With Cousins to the Vikings, teams like the Cardinals and Jets now know they need to look elsewhere for a starting quarterback. I still think Arizona makes a lot of sense as a landing spot for Foles, as I wrote earlier today.

One might wonder why a team would trade for Foles when they could just sign a free agent or select a quarterback in the 2018 NFL Draft. The reason to trade for Foles is that he’s a sure option. Teams can’t guarantee they’re going to get their guy in free agency, just look at Cousins. They also can’t guarantee they’re going to get the quarterback prospect they desire, especially when they’re picking at No. 15 overall like the Cardinals are.

If you give the Eagles their asking price for Foles, you get him. You’re paying the price of certainty, which is not invaluable. The alternative could be trying to bet on A.J. McCarron (bleh) or signing the corpse of Sam Bradford.

3 - The Eagles are going to pay Carson Wentz a ton of guaranteed money

We’ve already known that Wentz is going to get a huge pay day in the future. But this Cousins deal means it could be a lot more guaranteed money than previously expected.

That’s not a huge issue because we all know Wentz is the truth. He’s a franchise quarterback with an MVP level ceiling. He’s worth the money.

But guaranteed money also increases the risk involved. It makes it harder for the Eagles to move on in the case of something weird and unexpected happening (injury, sudden decline, etc). Hopefully that won’t be the case.

4 - LolSkins

Just wanted to take another moment to laugh at Washington for bungling this situation so badly. They did the hard part by actually finding a quarterback worth keeping. Then they screwed up the easy part by failing to pay him properly. Now Washington gets to deal with having to face Cousins in the same conference. LolSkins.