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QB Kirk Cousins, ATL (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter pizzatyme
- Start date
MattFancy
Footballguy
I believe so too. He's received $44M guaranteed now the last 2 years. At worst, he gets a transition tag next season and puts his 3 year total at $72M. Good work if you can get it.
TheDirtyWord
Footballguy
With QB protection rules in place in today's NFL, coupled with the fact that Josh McCown is still projected to make NFL starts in 2017, if the path to FA is littered with one year $22-23M contracts, it's a more than acceptable risk to take. If he gets to FA, he gets $30M/year.
Sebowski
Footballguy
I don't understand why everyone keeps saying this stuff. Does nobody believe there is even a 1% chance of Kirk playing poorly this year? If the Redskins go 4-12 and he throws 20 picks there is no way he gets his $100 million deal. And if you don't think that's a possibility then you don't watch the NFL very closely. Players and teams start sucking out of nowhere all the time. I'm not saying it's likely. I'm just saying there is another side to the coin here that nobody mentions.
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MattFancy
Footballguy
I don't disagree. I guess my post with the $72M guaranteed is what he can potentially be getting from the Skins. But if he falls off this season, who knows what he ends up getting paid next year.
TheDirtyWord
Footballguy
Not sure I get the reference (playing pool??)...but Mike Glennon just got $15M/year; career completion rate 59.4%, career YPA 6.51, career INT% 2.4%
Cousins in 2015-2016...68.3% completion rate, 7.9 YPA, INT% - 2.0%.
I think you're solidly wrong.
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I think the bottom line is that even if he sucks it up this year, he has 2 really good years behind him and plenty of excuses to hide behind this year. He will get a +20M contract next year from someone and there will probably be a bidding war. If Glennon can do it for 15M and very little tape, Cousins can do it.. If he plays the same or better, then they will transition tag him and he'll get paid a boat load. Unless he has a season ending injury, he is guaranteed 44M over these next 2 years and more than likely is getting 52M and change because of the transition tag. That's his starting point. It's no wonder Cousins told the skins to pound sand, they were offering him less than a million additional guaranteed money (if Cousins has an average or better year).
Sebowski
Footballguy
Sorry. Phone auto correct. Pool= poorly.
I don't buy the Glennon argument. "the Bears made a really stupid move that everyone agrees is stupid therefor that's the new standard for the league".
My main point is that this is all being blown out of proportion. The Redskins didn't screw anything up and Cousins is in a great place too. If he plays lights out the Skins will back up the truck and he'll stay. If the Redskins miss the playoffs it's probably time to blow it up. Fire Gruden and let Kirk walk. Big year for them.
TheDirtyWord
Footballguy
As for Glennon, I don't think anyone was blown out of the water regarding the deal he signed. Young QB some thought had starting potential...Bears took the plunge with what amounts to a 1 year commitment for $16M. Jimmy Garrappalo will hit FA next year - and with a perceived higher pedigree, I suspect he'll broach $20M/year. You simply don't do anything in the NFL without at least a good starting QB, if not great, anymore.
Even if the Redskins miss the playoffs and they fire Gruden, would Cousins be the guy folks would point fingers at? Redskins are 17-14-1 with Cousins at the helm. Prior two years before that 7-25. If I look at teams who likely will be in the market next year for a QB, you've got:
SF
NYJ
CLE
...these are the most likely teams, but dark horse teams include:
MIN (Sam Bradford?)
ARI (Carson Palmer is year-to-year)
JAX (Blake Bortles?)
BUF (Tyrod Taylor?)
...not to mention WAS themselves. WAS may say OK - time to back-up the truck. But there'll be one parking spot...and other maybe bigger and better positioned trucks. Ones that haven't lowballed him two off-seasons in a row and released a video placing the blame on Cousins for not accepting their most recent low ball offer while getting his name wrong.
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STEADYMOBBIN 22
Footballguy
Please change the title of the thread to say "Official KirT Cousins - GETS....."
Grahamburn
Footballguy
Bruce Allen has reminded me of Jon Gruden's initial press conference after being brought in to be the head coach of the Bucs. "Mark" Alstott. Cringe worthy. At least Jon only made the mistake once.
Holy Schneikes
Footballguy
They never countered, and I don't see why they would. The Skins (still) seem to be in denial and Kirk's team recognized that fact. Why bother when you have a perfectly good guarantee sitting right in front of you? All of the motivation to make a deal was on the Skins' side and if they never presented anything close to reasonable (especially until VERY late in the game), why bother to counter? I'm sure they talked about what it would take, but no formal offer was made because it was always fairly clear the Skins weren't going to seriously over-pay - which is would have taken to get the deal done.
In their minds, the offer the Skins threw out there was AMAZING. But given the actual situation, it was mediocre at best. It was a bridge too far.
Holy Schneikes
Footballguy
The risk is real, but it is low. If he has a mediocre/slightly bad season, he won't get top dollar, but almost certainly someone will give him at least as much as his extension would have netted him in new guaranteed money. Cap will go up, and even a bottom half guy will command $30M in guarantees for a new 5 year deal.
Similarly, if he has a bad injury, his price will go down, but how much? It's not like a back who shreds his knee and is forever "damaged goods". Unless he tears up his throwing shoulder or something crazy, it will drop him but not down to nothing. Too many teams need serviceable QBs.
If he has a truly AWFUL season that indicates he's not really a viable starter going forward, yeah, he might end up regretting passing on the longer term deal. But that doesn't seem to be his mindset and it would really have to be a very bad season before it would drop him out of the range the Skins essentially offered him.
MattFancy
Footballguy
Well back in Feb/March, Cousins and his agent wouldn't even negotiate until he was tagged. Now, I don't know why the Skins waited until May to make an offer, but from the end of the season until March, Cousins didn't want to work a deal until he was tagged. Not much the Skins can do there. And once the team did send him an offer, albeit a low offer, he never countered back with an offer. Cousins even said yesterday in his interview that there "probably wasn't an offer they could have made that I would have signed". So again, with he and his agent not negotiating until the tag was placed and with them also never countering the team's offer, what else could the Redskins have done? They can't negotiate with someone who doesn't want to negotiate.
And this isn't meant to absolve the Redskins. They could have made better offers and saw what happened. But if Kirk and his agent didn't want to make a deal, then Kirk deserves some blame too.
It's seems pretty obvious that he doesn't want to play in Washington. However, since they are intent on tagging him, he is smart enough to not come out and say that, since it would serve no positive purpose as far as public relations and team chemistry.
He's just letting it play out while he is paid handsomely.................
MattFancy
Footballguy
No doubt Cousins has played his perfectly to maximize his payday. But it's obvious he's talking out of both sides of his mouth. If he was really intent on staying in Washington like he says he is, they could have tried to work out a deal. Not even countering the Redskins offer, shows me he wants out. But, will gladly keep taking their money if they offer it.
habsfan
Footballguy
Regardless of what happens on the field this year or financially next year, the reality for him is that he has already earned an awful lot of money. If you take a step back, that is what mitigates the risk going forward. What percentage of NFL players never get a sniff of the money he has banked already?
I guess I missed the part where he said he is intent on staying in Washington. I have heard he would consider it, but never that it was his intention. Didn't he say at one point he didn't want to be there if Allen was there?
Anyway, makes no sense for him to come out and flatly state he wants out. He still has at least one year left and possibly more if they tag him again. No sense making that time adversarial................
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Almost none. Historically, Cousins is already very high on the list of all time highest paid players.
DallasDMac
Footballguy
This is dead on. Having a real hard time understanding while many people don't seem to get this. Not referring to people in here by the way. But read the comments after any article that references the negotiation (or lack thereof). But I understand that a) most comments are from morons and b) people just love to bag on the skins, just like the Browns and others. Click bait for the uninformed masses.MattFancy said:
There's a myriad of other, far more likely scenarios.
Top of the list is status quo: Skins are average, Kirk plays lights out once again. Odds are good that they miss the playoffs in all scenarios. If they go 7-9 and Kirk's numbers are close to last year's, then they'll try to kick the can down the road once more.
Excepting that, what if they make the playoffs and lose in the first round? Franchise again...
The less likely scenario is that they go 10-6, and win a playoff game. If that happens, Kirk gets the biggest contract in NFL history.
To me, the lowest probability is that he falls flat on his face.
Sebowski
Footballguy
The point is that nothing is known except he's under contract this year, and the Redskins can retain his rights next year as well. The rest is all hypotheticals or hindsight criticism about locking him up earlier. Whatever. It's go time. Let's see how that works out. The rest of this is wasted breath.
DallasDMac
Footballguy
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/kirk-cousins-wasn-t-peace-102520705.html
So gee, Cousins didn't get signed to a long term contract because he didn't want to be. That certainly kills a lot of the narrative that went on for 35 pages in this thread.
So gee, Cousins didn't get signed to a long term contract because he didn't want to be. That certainly kills a lot of the narrative that went on for 35 pages in this thread.
He's made so much $ now in 2 years that he doesn't ever need to sign a long term deal and he can make any team pay him 15+ million a year. 20+ if he performs at the same level as the last 2 years. $28 million more if the Redskins want to keep him for 2018. He rolled the dice and won BIG.
Redskins homer that watches every game. My observations: his stats, fantasy-wise, appear to be pretty good. You can trot him out there many weeks and pick up some good points.
In terms of "real football," I'm less bullish on him being worth $25 million + for the Redskins moving forward. While he's solid, he continues to have issues throwing under durress (as indicated above) and he doesn't always "create plays" when something goes wrong. Maybe he's not a "game manager," but he's also not a world-beating franchise guy. The issue with the Redskins continues to be: "yes, he's good enough to win 9-10 games with, if everything goes right" BUT it's not clear that he's the guy that will win 9-10 games if everything DOESN'T go right and also he's not yet shown that he's the guy to take you deep into the playoffs. Look at the INT late in the Philly game. Under durress he took a TD that many would make and served up an INT...that's the same thing he did at end of season vs. Giants. Ok, no one is perfect, but for 25 million per year, it's ok to expect more. And look at Philly and Washington right now...getting that game would have been huge and season altering at this point.
So yes, some of the hesitation to signing him has clearly been Snyder and Allen's butt hurt over the Shanny years and of RGIII (Snyder's guy) not panning out. But, beyond that, many of the Redskins faithful also see this with their own two eyes. In retrospect, they clearly should have signed him for $20 million / year when they had the chance...he's CLEARLY worth that. But, as even Scot M. has said, you have to balance out the entire salary cap issue with signing other players as well, making the decision more complex. If he's the type of guy who will win only if you surround him with other guys (offense AND defense) who will need to be paid, you have to factor in the total cost of the equation.
San Francisco is in a bit different situation with tons of salary cap available, but ultimately, the same decision making equation is ultimately applicable. If I'm San Fran, I'm thinking: "do I sign a 30 year old vet for 25 million per year" or do I take my top 3 selection to get a top rookie who will be playing on rookie contract for 4 years. Or, do I roll with Bethard, who looks like he has promise, who is younger and who is on a rookie contract. If there is not much separation between Cousins and Bethard at season's end, it's not a no brainer to break the bank for Cousins. All this talk is predicated on media saying "Shanahan knows Cousins" but that's a tenuous connection at best. Prior to the season, same media said Rams were in play because McVay knew Cousins. How about now? They are winning with the young guy, so it would be insane to make the move. And now Bethard has his chance to proove himself in San Francisco.
I dunno. I don't doubt someone will throw money at Cousins, but I'm not sure that the prognosticators have it right that Cousins definitely makes coin in San Fran. It could be a team like the Jets who miss out on top QB prospects and who have no one in the pipeline who are the more obvious choice.
I am a Redskins fan who wanted the team to sign Cousins years ago to a favorable contract but now that the price tag has gone up, the level of expectation for his play has gone up. And FFL stats are not the same as "real football performance." That's what we all have to keep in mind when looking at Cousins future. Mind you, I'm not saying the guy stinks...he's solid enough. But how much do you pay a "solid" guy and how much separation is there between one solid guy and another solid guy....
In terms of "real football," I'm less bullish on him being worth $25 million + for the Redskins moving forward. While he's solid, he continues to have issues throwing under durress (as indicated above) and he doesn't always "create plays" when something goes wrong. Maybe he's not a "game manager," but he's also not a world-beating franchise guy. The issue with the Redskins continues to be: "yes, he's good enough to win 9-10 games with, if everything goes right" BUT it's not clear that he's the guy that will win 9-10 games if everything DOESN'T go right and also he's not yet shown that he's the guy to take you deep into the playoffs. Look at the INT late in the Philly game. Under durress he took a TD that many would make and served up an INT...that's the same thing he did at end of season vs. Giants. Ok, no one is perfect, but for 25 million per year, it's ok to expect more. And look at Philly and Washington right now...getting that game would have been huge and season altering at this point.
So yes, some of the hesitation to signing him has clearly been Snyder and Allen's butt hurt over the Shanny years and of RGIII (Snyder's guy) not panning out. But, beyond that, many of the Redskins faithful also see this with their own two eyes. In retrospect, they clearly should have signed him for $20 million / year when they had the chance...he's CLEARLY worth that. But, as even Scot M. has said, you have to balance out the entire salary cap issue with signing other players as well, making the decision more complex. If he's the type of guy who will win only if you surround him with other guys (offense AND defense) who will need to be paid, you have to factor in the total cost of the equation.
San Francisco is in a bit different situation with tons of salary cap available, but ultimately, the same decision making equation is ultimately applicable. If I'm San Fran, I'm thinking: "do I sign a 30 year old vet for 25 million per year" or do I take my top 3 selection to get a top rookie who will be playing on rookie contract for 4 years. Or, do I roll with Bethard, who looks like he has promise, who is younger and who is on a rookie contract. If there is not much separation between Cousins and Bethard at season's end, it's not a no brainer to break the bank for Cousins. All this talk is predicated on media saying "Shanahan knows Cousins" but that's a tenuous connection at best. Prior to the season, same media said Rams were in play because McVay knew Cousins. How about now? They are winning with the young guy, so it would be insane to make the move. And now Bethard has his chance to proove himself in San Francisco.
I dunno. I don't doubt someone will throw money at Cousins, but I'm not sure that the prognosticators have it right that Cousins definitely makes coin in San Fran. It could be a team like the Jets who miss out on top QB prospects and who have no one in the pipeline who are the more obvious choice.
I am a Redskins fan who wanted the team to sign Cousins years ago to a favorable contract but now that the price tag has gone up, the level of expectation for his play has gone up. And FFL stats are not the same as "real football performance." That's what we all have to keep in mind when looking at Cousins future. Mind you, I'm not saying the guy stinks...he's solid enough. But how much do you pay a "solid" guy and how much separation is there between one solid guy and another solid guy....
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With Garrapolo to San Fran, is there a new leader in the clubhouse for the Cousins lottery?
Arizona? (they may feel that they have a good enough team to win now with solid QB but is Palmer done?)
NY Jets? Cleveland Browns? (yes, they need a QB but are they more likely to draft one of the young ones, to rebuild with someone younger, cheaper, and with more upside?)
I think something like Arizona makes sense...a team that wants to win now. But I don't think Elway to pay, making me think Arizona is a real possibility. But I doubt he'll get what he thought he was going to get earlier this year...
Arizona? (they may feel that they have a good enough team to win now with solid QB but is Palmer done?)
NY Jets? Cleveland Browns? (yes, they need a QB but are they more likely to draft one of the young ones, to rebuild with someone younger, cheaper, and with more upside?)
I think something like Arizona makes sense...a team that wants to win now. But I don't think Elway to pay, making me think Arizona is a real possibility. But I doubt he'll get what he thought he was going to get earlier this year...
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
Jacksonville. Strong at almost every position except QB. Dunno what their cap situation is like.
This upcoming draft is looking pretty deep at QB as well. That's not great for Cousins.
It's also not good for him that Goff, Wentz and Watson -- all look like the real thing now. Teams will see that it can work to draft a guy. And Watson wasn't one of the first few picks even...
YEs, I keep hearing Jacksonville. But do you think they'll think they can make it work with Bortles?
Interseptopus
Footballguy
They can walk away from Bortles after this season. 5th year option is only guaranteed against injury.
On the MMQB 10 Things podcast, they were talking about how the Dareus trade makes an already tight cap situation even tighter. So it could be tough.Pip's Invitation said:
I could see Arizona tearing it all down, especially if Fitz retires. At a minimum, Cousins would have to consider whether he'd want to go to a situation where they may not be good for awhile.
I'm really not sure what destination would make sense. But I still think he's more likely to leave than not.
Tommy Collins
Footballguy
He hasn't been paid like he wanted to be. So they tag him twice, and then reward him with getting rid of his 2 best WRs in DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon. Now they're struggling, and their replacement WR, Terrelle Pryor, is being phased out of the offense halfway through the season. I have to imagine there are a lot of angry feelings toward the team. Publicly he has said all the right things, but apparently he has had private conversations about wanting to reunite with McVay and Shanahan, neither of which is likely at this point.
simey
Footballguy
If Arizona was without Palmer and Fitz, they still have some building pieces in David Johnson, John Brown (when healthy), Jaron Brown, JJ Nelson, and their D has playmakers. They can draft some good players and get some in FA.
Phantom Knight
Footballguy
Pip's Invitation said:
- Jags: I agree. And they certainly have a decent wr corp and now rb.
- Giants: especially if they can find a legit rb and firm up the Oline a little bit (that is a current issue, right?)
- Cards: Perhaps, though pretty much have to assume Fitz will not be there and the rest of the wr corp is shaky.
- Bills: Perhaps, though what's that look like without McCoy?
I mean, the irony is that all of Washington's dithering over the past couple years has made him very wealthy. But I get the sense with a lot of these athletes the money is less important than feeling respected (and that's completely understandable; as much as we all think "I'd take a job eating poop for $20M a year," the fact is I'm sure all of us have passed up more lucrative opportunities to work somewhere we feel comfortable).
That's why I still think he leaves. I just have no idea where it will be.
Tommy Collins
Footballguy
He's made money, but has had no long-term security, which is very important to these guys.
Da Guru
Fair & Balanced
At 29 Cousins who was a 4th rd pick will have made $46,633,295 after this season. If Cousins never made another dollar in the NFL I would say he still has a little security.
