2017 Washington Area Football Team: Kissing (But Not Marrying) Cousins

[singaporesoxfan]

So it looks like the Skins and Kirk Cousins couldn't come to a resolution - no surprise when the one offer described there was essentially a lowball. $53M for 2 years ignores the fact that Cousins would have made $24M the 1st year anyway, so they were essentially offering $29M extra - which he would mostly get if they transition-tagged him next year ($28.7M) or if he went on the open market.

 

[soxfan121]

I see no reason Cousins should give one inch in these negotiations, given how Washington has continually jerked him around throughout the process. If Washington wants to retain him, they should have to pay the absolute maximum, and that means no extension now and the leverage of the FA market or franchise tag after the season. Cousins could get burned, if he suffers a career altering or ending injury, but if he has a "normal" year he's going to start negotiations at 34 million /season. Kevin Clark at the Ringer has a good piece on how this is going to blow the QB compensation scale to smithereens. Jimmy G is gonna get PAID by someone, and he owes Cousins a thank you card when it happens.

 

[dcmissle]

Bruce Allen has his "Macaca" moment --

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20089114/kirk-cousins-washington-redskins-become-first-qb-repeat-franchise-tag-player

It's one thing to call your QB by the wrong name once. Quite another to do it 5 times reading from a prepared statement after which you know you will be taking no questions.

And revealing the details of the offer to make your QB look greedy -- yeah, that always works out well.

Clown shoes.

And good summary here --

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20089406/trade-kirk-cousins-washington-redskins-blew-faces-hard-truths-nfl-2017-training-camp

 

[Stitch01]

The time to trade Kirk Cousins was like two years ago when they didn't want to commit to him long-term on what passes for a reasonable contract. When they didn't commit the gamble was 1) he was going to play well and they were going to have to give him a contract they obviously werent going to be willing to give him or 2) he was going to play poorly and then, uh, I guess congratulations on maybe having a bad quarterback on their own terms?

I think they are kinda right to not pay Cousins and head to Flacco purgatory, but they handled this terribly and that statement is a joke.

 

[dcmissle]

Schefter is right that they should have traded him months ago if this is where they were going to land. And Schefter is right that they should trade him now. Transition tag will get them zero -- another team will structure a contract they cannot meet at any reasonable cost.

But look -- they are not only incompetent, but also bad guys. Some offseason with McCloughan and Cousins bookends --

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/sports/redskins/first-bruce-allen-made-the-kirk-cousins-situation-bad-then-he-made-it-worse/2017/07/17/e259d444-6b1f-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html

 

[Stitch01]

Yeah, the release yesterday was amateur smear campaign stuff, but I still say the decision point was actually last offseason. Hard to trade the guy now in mid-July for a purported contender. What's the plan for this year, Colt McCoy? RG III the return? Just play the season out and move on next offseason at this point IMO. But trashing the guy because he beat them good at the negotiating table is a bush league move.

 

[dcmissle]

I'd consider flipping him to SF for Hoyer and a pick better than the third round compensatory, which is the most they are going to get if they get that. McCoy could start; Hoyer is a more than respectable backup and could eventually win the job; Sudfeld fine at 3. Then I'd draft someone next spring.

Will not happen because they will not "reward" a Shanahan. That's how they think.

Low character plus stupid is a deadly combination.

 

[bakahump]

I get that Snyder and by extension the Washington Racists are not liked and probably or most likely dinks. But honest question, If this was the home team, Wouldnt this just be the patriots using the leverage allocated to them?

I suppose we can argue that BB never would have let it get to this (as he would realize the value of an above average NFL QB). But they are where they are so, seems like they need to use what leverage they have.

And yes by extension Cousins has every right to use his. Which if I am not mistaken his only play is to sit out right?

 

[dcmissle]

You have the leverage going the wrong way. Cousins has no fear taking this year to year and betting on himself. The Redskins have no leverage. The only way to control Cousins is to franchise him again next year. At $34 million, that would cumulate to $78 million over the "16, "17 and "18 seasons (20+24+34), and it would gobble up > 20% of their "18 salary cap.

 

[edmunddantes]

• A third straight franchise tag, which would give him $58.42 million between 2017 and ’18, and free agency at age 30 in ’19.

• A transition tag next year, which would set his floor at $52.68 million for ’17 and ’18, and give him a chance to test the market next March (with the Redskins retaining matching rights) at age 29.

• $23.94 million this year and free agency next year.

The Redskins first approached Cousins’s reps about a deal in December 2015 (before a road game against the Bears) and were told that he wanted to play the year out before negotiating. The Skins were 5-7, but won four straight to make the playoffs.


After that, the first offer came: $12.5 million per year, more than $7 million less than the franchise tag for 2016—at a time when 18 quarterbacks were making more than $16 million per. The team went to $15 million per before the combine, and $16 million per after it. But then Brock Osweiler signed for $18 million per year, and talks quieted and Cousins wound up playing out the season on the tag.

That set the stage for this year, with the Redskins’ initial offer of $100 million over five years (with $40 million guaranteed), carrying an average well short of the tag number that Cousins had in front of him. For a few months, that sat on the table. And then, after the draft, the Redskins moved, making a strong offer north of that previous one that, as I understand it, could have sparked a deal in 2016.

The issue?

Cousins’s leverage (see: those three options above) has strengthened considerably since. Also, Cousins’s 2017 money is secure already, and his financial prospects for 2018, absent a long-term deal, are great. So if the team wasn’t going to tie itself to Cousins in that way for 2019— which would cement his place in D.C.—it was going to be hard for the Redskins to find a solution that would make sense for him.

Kirk and the Redskins both played this the way they wanted to. Now the leverage has flipped, and for the Redskins to complain about it is bullshit. Kirk took a bet on himself in 2015, and the Redskins could have bought him out of the bet by upping their offer till he didn't think the bet was worth it.

They didn't. Cousins won. They kept thinking Cousins would eventually stop betting on himself, and every year they do that, the cost has to go up as they lose the ability to buy him out of guaranteed dollars cheaply.

So he won, and now it's just sour grapes from the Redskins.

and it's worth playing this quote from earlier in the article:

Last summer, I was talking to Cousins about his situation and how the Redskins were protecting themselves against the chance that his eight-game flourish to finish the 2015 season was just some comet crossing the sky. He pointed out that he was in a similar position in both high school in college, and said, “Here I am again. The team says they want to see another year. That’s fine.”

He seems like he'll keep playing till they pay him at least 3 years plus of guaranteed money.

 

[Saints Rest]

The added factor in Cousins' favor is that by going year-to-year, he can insulate himself a bit from the mercurial nature of the Washington front office. This is not a team with stability or any record of long-term vision. If Snyder et al do another stupid thing, Kirk can wave goodbye and look elsewhere much more easily without a long-term contract tieing him to the looney bin.

 

[Winger 03]

Handled poorly by WAS. This is shaping to be a lost season for them in that there is really no future for Cousins in DC. Why would they "wow" him with an offer for '18 when they were incapable of "wowing" him with (what would have ended up to be a lower offer) now or in '16?

He is so in the drivers seat that he can patiently wait and see what happens. Now how about this..... Is WAS betting on him playing poorly in '17 since Garcon and Jackson are gone and then can half-ass justify to the fan-base that he is not worth what he was asking and is asking as a PR lever to get rid of him? Don't forget Snyder, Allen et. al. run plays directly from the "bad PR moves" playbook so this could be their MO.

And...... Doug Williams - newly minted Senior VP of Player Personnel already pre-loaded his support for the #3 QB Nate Sudfeld.....

*****
“Sudfeld’s one of my favorites,” Williams told ESPN 980’s Doc Walker, via Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post. “You know, he was one of the guys, when we drafted him, when we sat in the room [and] we talked about drafting a quarterback, I was a Sudfeld guy. You know, none of [the prospects] took snaps up under the center; they all stood back in the shotgun. He was at Indiana, but when you watched him and the guys at a couple more schools, there was something about him that you liked. And I think he’s learned how to take the snap from under center; he gets the ball out of his hands.”

The Redskins selected Sudfeld in the sixth round of the 2016 draft. Even though Sudfeld didn’t play last season, Williams, the team’s senior vice president of player personnel, said Sudfeld has much higher value than where he was drafted.

“The first couple weeks here, I think [Coach Jay Gruden] wanted to run him off,” Williams said. “He looked so bad Jay wanted to run him off. No, no, but the kid has worked; he’s learned. And I’ll tell you what, out of the quarterbacks that came out this year, if he was coming out this year and looked like he looked [last week], he would be up there anywhere from the second to first round. The kid has improved.”
*****

So, a bad start for Cousins - McCoy finishes that game then turn to Sudfeld? I am not betting against it, that is for certain. Week 5 is their BYE week......

Look ,I have been a Redskins fan since I was little - nothing surprises me anymore with this scurrilous bunch.

 

[Super Nomario]

It's easy to bash Washington, but the salary structure of QBs in the NFL makes the Cousins decision difficult. Twenty-two QBs will have cap hits between $15 MM and $25 MM in 2017. If you're paying Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers in that range, great! If you're paying Brock Osweiler or Mike Glennon that, not so much. C-plus / B-minus QBs get paid like grade-A QBs. So what do you do when you have a B-minus QB like Cousins? Do you pay him like an A guy and find yourself at a disadvantage assembling the rest of the roster (like the Ravens with Flacco's deal)? Or do you let him walk and run the risk of having garbage production at QB?

They have done a lousy job giving themselves another option - Nate Sudfeld is the only QB they've taken in the last two drafts. Surprised they didn't go for a Nathan Peterman or Brad Kaaya on day three this year.

 

[singaporesoxfan]

I think a lot of the criticism of the front office I've seen was not for the underlying business decision but for the announcement itself. It's fine to think that Cousins is not the long-term answer. It's insulting to fans to try to spin that and claim they were offering Cousins a blockbuster contract.