Justin Herbert and Kirk Cousins have been on opposite sides of 25 real dynasty trades.
Not simulations and not a calculator lining up two numbers. Every one of them is a completed trade from a public Sleeper league, graded at the player values that were current on the day it happened.
None of them were a straight one-for-one. Every time these two crossed, something else was attached to close it.
This is the part a calculator cannot tell you. In 9 of these deals exactly one side had to attach something extra, and 9 of those 9 times it was the Kirk Cousins side (0 the other way). The side that keeps having to add is the side holding the lesser asset, so the market has been treating Justin Herbert as the more valuable of the two.
Everything above is priced on the day each deal happened, which is the only honest way to grade a completed trade. It is not what they cost now. Today Justin Herbert prices at 3,160 and Kirk Cousins at 25, so the market currently rates Justin Herbert about 126.4x the other. A pair can lean one way across its history and price the opposite way now; that gap is the whole reason to check the deal in front of you rather than the deal someone made in 2023.
Values as of 2026-07-24.
| Date | Margin | Went with Justin Herbert | Went with Kirk Cousins |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-06-03 | +27% | Khalil Shakir, 1 1st | Zach Ertz, Ja'Marr Chase |
| 2024-09-22 | +88% | — | Alvin Kamara, Jakobi Meyers |
| 2024-09-11 | -2% | Cole Kmet, Chris Olave, Keaton Mitchell, 1 1st, 2 2nds, 2 3rds, 1 later pick | Adam Thielen, Lamar Jackson, Tyler Huntley, 2 more, 1 later pick |
| 2024-06-26 | +112% | — | Aidan O'Connell, Evan Hull, 1 2nd |
| 2024-06-15 | +25% | Saquon Barkley, Deebo Samuel, Terry McLaurin | Michael Penix, Trey Benson, Marvin Harrison |
| 2024-06-04 | +48% | Gabe Davis | Jared Goff |
| 2024-05-02 | +14% | — | 1 1st, 1 2nd |
| 2024-04-22 | -18% | — | Michael Pittman, 1 1st |
| 2023-09-12 | +105% | — | Derek Carr |
| 2023-08-30 | +46% | Easton Stick, Justyn Ross, Tucker Kraft, 1 1st | DeAndre Hopkins, Cordarrelle Patterson, Jamaal Williams, 4 more, 1 later pick |
Read each row as: Justin Herbert, plus anything in the third column, was traded for Kirk Cousins plus anything in the fourth. An em dash means that side sent nobody else. Margin is the value gap at that day’s prices from the side that received Justin Herbert; positive means that side came out ahead.
Across all 25, the whole-deal value gap runs +16.9% from the side that received Justin Herbert, so the side ending up with Justin Herbert has generally come out ahead on face value. That measures the entire trade, every piece included, not these two players against each other.
A calculator answers “is Justin Herbert for Kirk Cousins fair” by subtracting one number from another, and it gives every manager in your league the same answer. That tells you nothing about whether the trade closes. What closes it is whether one side has to attach a piece, and which side that usually is. The 25 deals above are the record of what leagues actually agreed to when these two were on the table together.
How trade fairness actually works →
Every Justin Herbert trade · Every Kirk Cousins trade
All players with real trade data →