Should the Skins re-sign Cousins....?

[Burgundy&GoldForever]

More reading material: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/12/ ... b0.twitter

$19.75 million?

[OldSchool]

Overpaying an average QB is a minor risk for the Redskins. What of it if they secure with a great contract and it ends looking like they paid 20, 30 or 40% more than they should? QB contracts keep inflating so if a 40% overage is going to look more reasonable at the end of it. The HUGE risk is they blunder and let some other club woe away a 10 year starter after Redkin fans have endure a 20 year QB drought.

[Burgundy&GoldForever]

I'll just leave this here:

QBs w/ highest comp % vs blitz:

Cousins 70.8%

Rivers 66.1%

A/Smith 65.9%

Palmer 64.8%

Brady 64.8%

Dalton 63.6%

Hoyer 63%

Bridgewater 62.3%

[riggofan]

Overpaying an average QB is a minor risk for the Redskins.

True but this is not a team that is going to take any risks when it comes to the quarterback position

I'm going to trust McCloughan will make the right call one way or another on this. I really hope that its an easy decision this off season, because it will hopefully mean that the team did well in December. We could go 1-4 the rest of the month and be having a much different conversation a few weeks from now. I like this discussion much better.

[StorminMormon86]

Honestly, I do think that Cousins wants to gamble on himself, which means that, unless he is blown away by a "lock him down" offer from the Redskins BEFORE the start of free agency, he will test the market... and there WILL be significant offers from other desperate teams... He would be perfectly happy being tagged, as well, as it will give him the opportunity to polish his resume, while paying him top dollar to invest for his fiscal future. Either way, unless he suffers a catastrophic injury, he gets a really good deal for himself.

I don't believe the Redskins are willing to gamble, though. They will make a reasonable, good faith effort to achieve a deal, but is still think the odds are that Cousins gets tagged, assuming he suffers no disasters of his own creation. The team DOES NOT want Kirk to hit the market...

As long as Kirk is here for 2016, I would be happy with anything at this point.

[SkinsJock]

I'm hoping that we win the rest of our games and there's a huge bidding war - this could be a lot of fun

btw - I'm looking forward to what we have to use to "woe" him into not leaving - how old are some of you guys?

and - have you seen how well OldSchool's other favorite franchise is doing with their QB situation

[SkinsJock]

As long as Kirk is here for 2016, I would be happy with anything at this point.

OMG - thankfully, for many of us, guys with a lot more rational sense are going to make that decision for you

[Burgundy&GoldForever]

As long as Kirk is here for 2016, I would be happy with anything at this point.

OMG - thankfully, for many of us, guys with a lot more rational sense are going to make that decision for you

Do you think Scot McCloughan is just going to let Kirk Cousins walk away in free agency? Yes or No. Let's get this on record now.

[DEHog]

More reading material: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/12/ ... b0.twitter

$19.75 million?

Well it looks like the floor has ben set. As I said (as log as he continues to play well) it's going to take 35-40 mil or somewhere in the area of 12-15 mil a year to get him signed.

[Burgundy&GoldForever]

More reading material: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/12/ ... b0.twitter

$19.75 million?

Well it looks like the floor has ben set. As I said (as log as he continues to play well) it's going to take 35-40 mil or somewhere in the area of 12-15 mil a year to get him signed.

I'm starting to hope that's all it's going to take. That $16 million RGIII option is starting to look cheap by comparison. No one saw this coming, right Mike Shanahan?

I hate to say that guy was right but it's starting to look like that guy was right.

[riggofan]

Do you think Scot McCloughan is just going to let Kirk Cousins walk away in free agency? Yes or No. Let's get this on record now.

hah. You don't have to look too hard for that month where he was repeatedly posting that both Cousins and Gruden would be gone in 2016.

Be careful with your answer here, SkinsJock!

I'll just say I'm so glad that it feels irrelevant what any of us think McCloughan will do and want him to do. You know what I mean? Over the past ten+ years, it seems like so many of the stupid a** moves the team has made have been reactions to what fans and the media were howling for. Fire this guy. Sign this guy. Bench this guy. etc; etc; etc; All of these things done to appease fans in the short term rather than do the hard things necessary to build a winning team over the long term.

Keeping my fingers crossed that we finally have a football guy running the show instead of a marketing guy.

[DEHog]

More reading material: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/12/ ... b0.twitter

$19.75 million?

Well it looks like the floor has ben set. As I said (as log as he continues to play well) it's going to take 35-40 mil or somewhere in the area of 12-15 mil a year to get him signed.

I'm starting to hope that's all it's going to take. That $16 million RGIII option is starting to look cheap by comparison. No one saw this coming, right Mike Shanahan?

I hate to say that guy was right but it's starting to look like that guy was right.

Ha...no doubt Shanny is somewhere smiling. But lets not forget the job RG has done...he gets my vote for Comeback POY!!

Back on topic...I would say with 20 mil on the table for FT Cousins...it's SM move.

[markshark84]

Be careful with your answer here, SkinsJock!

When SJ is backed into a corner (which is often) he typically doesn't give a direct answer or just ignores the issue all together --- so I wouldn't hold your breath on a response......

[SkinsJock]

Do you think Scot McCloughan is going to let Kirk Cousins walk away in free agency? Yes or No. Let's get this on record now.

NO, NEVER, NOT HAPPENING - and you can put that in capital letters

[riggofan]

ESPN Insider article for those who are interested. Pretty much what folks are saying around here, but his stats analysis is worth reading over.

Paying Kirk Cousins might be Redskins' best option

Sam Monson, Special to ESPN.com

The NFL is a barren quarterback wasteland in 2015. The old guard is aging. Peyton Manning looks less like one of the greatest to ever play the game and more like a guy suited to driving the Buicks he hawks in commercials.

Some of the league's best are over the hill and there are fewer impressive young quarterbacks taking their place. The last genuinely great year of quarterback talent to come out of college was more than a decade ago (2004), and several teams now find themselves in quarterback purgatory, destined to roll the dice on whatever they can find in the bare free-agency cupboard or the glimmer of talent they spot in the draft.

Quarterbacks who have shown anything can hang around and make a fortune as experienced backups despite reams of footage suggesting they have no business seeing the field. Matt Cassel is still earning playing time based on tape from five years ago and maybe dating all the way to his 2008 breakout season as the underdog in New England.

The latest quarterback who might be playing his way into some serious leverage and financial gain is Washington's Kirk Cousins.


Let's start with the headlines: Washington is 5-6, in first place in the NFC East (albeit via tiebreakers) and with a real shot of making the playoffs in the division nobody seems to want to win. Cousins is 5-1 at home this season, has completed 68.4 percent of his passes and has a passer rating of 91.7.


Kirk Cousins has done his best work at home this season. Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports
That's not to say he has actually played well overall, but when you consider where the bar was in Washington in order to get him his chance in the first place, he has exceeded expectations.

In PFF's new ratings system, he is 20th for the season. That's not great, and won't change anybody's Pro Bowl ballot, but 50 quarterbacks have taken more than 60 snaps this season (a rough game's worth), and that puts him in the top two-thirds of the league, or into the realms of viable.

We also have to bear in mind when evaluating Cousins that his career is 20 starts old. This season is essentially his debut year. We have to assume that the Cousins we see now has room to grow as he develops and gains experience. Coming into this season he was one of the most turnover-prone quarterbacks in league history. He hadn't had a season in which his interception percentage was under 4.4, but already this year that has fallen to 2.6 percent.

That's still not a fantastic figure (the top three passers in the league this season are at 1.0 percent or under), but it's now "middle of the pack" rather than "historically bad" territory and better than players such as Cam Newton and Matt Ryan this season.

His passing profile fits that of most young quarterbacks, who struggle the most when pressured. This season, his passer rating from a clean pocket is 111.1, throwing 13 touchdowns and only three picks and completing 77.2 percent of his passes. Those are All-Pro numbers and are well above the league average even from a flawless pocket.

His issues come when the heat is applied. His completion percentage when pressured drops to 51.1. His yards-per-attempt figure drops more than 2 full yards and he has thrown just three touchdowns to seven picks, giving him a passer rating of 53.7 on those throws. His PFF grade on passes where he faced no pressure is plus-7.9; when he felt heat it is an ugly minus-11.2.

Washington's offensive line has been OK this year, but could certainly be improved with the expectation that Cousins would improve with it. Trent Williams has yet to surrender a sack playing left tackle, but the combination of Josh LeRibeus and Kory Lichtensteiger has given the Redskins the league's worst-performing center this season, applying a consistent barrage of pressure right up the gut, which is never ideal for a quarterback.

With Brandon Scherff likely to improve on a steady rookie campaign and both Morgan Moses and Spencer Long holding their own, Washington's line could quickly become a decent unit if it can upgrade the weak link at center. That could even happen if Lichtensteiger, who has played well in the past, is carrying an injury that would explain his poor play, or simply rediscovers his better form.

The bottom line for Washington is that right now it has no quarterback signed long term, and in today's NFL that's a bad place to be. The headline acts of the 2016 free-agency crop are Sam Bradford, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brock Osweiler, and Osweiler is likely to get locked down if he shows enough for the Broncos down the stretch.

There's a very real chance that Cousins is the best option Washington has for the near future, and he has flashed more than enough this season to suggest that might not be a terrible situation to be in. Cousins has shown the upside of a talented, young quarterback, and the Redskins are in a good situation to be able to build around him and try to help him develop into something better. With an improved offensive line next year and an upgrade in the receiving corps or backfield, Cousins could well be the quarterback of the future in Washington after all, and worth the contract it will take to lock him down.

At the very least, he might be the best option the team has available to it.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/insider/story/_/ ... option-nfl

More than anything, I think its interesting how many of these writers, etc; have changed their tune on Cousins in recent weeks.

[SkinsJock]

^^ from this article ... "There's a very real chance that Cousins is the best option Washington has for the near future, and he has flashed more than enough this season to suggest that might not be a terrible situation to be in. Cousins has shown the upside of a talented, young quarterback, and the Redskins are in a good situation to be able to build around him and try to help him develop into something better. With an improved offensive line next year and an upgrade in the receiving corps or backfield, Cousins could well be the quarterback of the future in Washington after all, and worth the contract it will take to lock him down. At the very least, he might be the best option the team has available to it."

I agree with this and I'll stick by my hope that while Kirk Cousins started out by having a huge turnover issue he can possibly transition into being a good NFL QB - there are not many options out there and we have time to improve our QB depth

I have faith in Scot and the FO that they fully understand what they have in Kirk and will structure a deal that pays Kirk a decent amount but also ensures his continued improvement

[Irn-Bru]

Agreed, why play for 15/16 guaranteed over three years when you could play one for 18 mil? If he doesn't do well he's got 18 mil, if he does well he'll be in line for a huge payday!!

lol. I don't think 15 over three years is remotely in the ball park for a starting QB. That's like the money they pay the left guard.

When you hear $15m three years, they're talking per year which is reasonable for a quarterback.

Yeah, that's what I meant. A deal that averages $15+ million per year.

[riggofan]

Wow this Kirk bandwagon is really picking up some steam...

ESPN analyst thinks Kirk Cousins could be the next Drew Brees

Former NFL quarterback Danny Kannell has a theory about Kirk Cousins, and if the headline didn’t already give it away, you might want to sit down for what follows.

“I think Kirk Cousins could be the next Drew Brees,” Kannell said Wednesday on ESPN Radio’s “Russillo and Kannell” show. “Tell me why he can’t.”

“Ummm,” co-host Ryen Russillo replied after a long pause. “I don’t know off the top of my head, was Brees as much of a turnover machine as Cousins has been?”

Kannell proceeded to note that Brees was, in fact, as much of a turnover machine as Cousins early in his career. In his first 28 games after the San Diego Chargers selected him in the second round of the 2001 NFL draft, Brees threw 29 touchdowns and 31 interceptions, while completing 58 percent of his passes. Cousins, by comparison, has thrown 34 touchdowns and 29 interceptions, while completing 64 percent of his passes, in 25 games.

Brees blossomed in his fourth pro season, throwing 27 touchdowns against seven interceptions, and leading San Diego to the AFC West title in 2004. Since signing with New Orleans as a free agent in 2006, he’s won a Super Bowl and set several NFL records, including highest completion percentage in a season and the most number of seasons with 5,000 yards passing.

Kannell, who, like Cousins, once made a weekly radio appearance on a local station as a backup quarterback, attempted to explain why he thinks Cousins’s career could follow a similar trajectory.

“I’d go in every morning on Kool 105 in Denver with J.J. and the Coach and we would talk about games,” Kannell said of his days as the Broncos’ backup quarterback with a radio gig in 2003. “We had just played the San Diego Chargers and Drew Brees was the starter and he looked awful. And we’re in there laughing about how bad he was, like, ‘Man, can you believe that guy’s a starter? How does this guy get it done? He’s got no future.’ And I was crushing him. I feel really stupid about it now, but, there’s a growth process and I think you’ve seen enough from Kirk Cousins, the ability to win games and those sort of intangibles that coaches talk about. I think he’s got ’em. Every coach that I’ve talked to, and [Michigan State Coach] Mark Dantonio was one of them, who has spent time with him, has talked about his ability to lead others and raise up the play of the guys around him. And when I look at his skill set, I see a very similar skill set to Drew Brees. Drew Brees was not the most athletic guy, he wasn’t the biggest, prototypical quarterback that you would look at, it just took a guy like [Saints Coach] Sean Payton to believe in him and say, ‘All right, you’re going to be our guy. You’re going to be our franchise.’ ”

Russillo wasn’t convinced.

“If this is who [Cousins] is now, I’m more open to the idea that he can be a guy, but will he be one of the five most efficient, productive QBs for a decade like Brees was?” he asked. “That’s a leap.”

“It’s a leap for sure,” Kannell replied. “But I’m trying to look for potential. I’m willing to go out there and find something, instead of just sitting back and criticizing. I think we criticize way too many young quarterbacks across the board. … He’s winning games, he’s starting to play better. Yeah, if you put him on a team that doesn’t have talent around him, I don’t think he’s the type of quarterback that can lift everybody up at this point in his career, but could he be? Absolutely.”

Well then. If the Redskins think Cousins can become anything close to “the next Drew Brees,” one would think they’ll do whatever it takes to keep him after this season. Otherwise, they run the risk of watching the former Big Ten QB develop into a star with another team, like, you know, Drew Brees.

“I wouldn’t go crazy with him and give him a $100 million deal, but I think he’s absolutely worth investing in,” Kannell said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc- ... rew-brees/

[Burgundy&GoldForever]

Wow this Kirk bandwagon is really picking up some steam...

I think we had this before ESPN did. But it's nice to see some of the talking heads talking notice. Usually they have their heads so far up New England's and Dallas' keysters they don't even have time to remember there are 30 other teams.

[SkinsJock]

^^ that's a very nice comparison from Kannell and that would be fantastic for the Redskins ... if it comes about

I remember Drew Brees from those days and the interceptions - he was a lot like Brett Favre in his early days. They didn't care, they had such a positive attitude on the field and it showed all the time - we may see that from Kirk Cousins eventually but he hasn't showed it yet ... we did see the "YOU LIKE THAT" outburst but with Favre and Brees they were always just jacked up about playing QB - Cousins is a lot more quiet

be great for the Redskins if Kirk Cousins can get to the Drew Brees level - we shall see ...

[StorminMormon86]

I still contend that at this point, he's more along the lines of Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco...but hopefully he can ascend to be the next Brees.

[SkinsJock]

I do think that Cousins has improved and I hope we resign him for a reasonable amount

Cousins would be better off if he were allowed more flexibility - the offense we've seen recently works better when he's given more freedom

be interesting to see what happens with RG3 next season - I would not be surprised to see him flourish under a coach that wants to help him


it could happen that we don't have either Cousins or Griffin on the roster next season

[markshark84]

Cousins would be better off if he were allowed more flexibility - the offense we've seen recently works better when he's given more freedom

I actually think he does much better in a controlled environment. He is a QB that thrives on structure. When he has to improv, you get plays where Cousins throws the ball cross-field aimlessly into the air and our RB somehows comes up with it.....

be interesting to see what happens with RG3 next season - I would not be surprised to see him flourish under a coach that wants to help him

It will be VERY interesting. I still think he can make it, but I don't see any NFL franchise investing the time Danny boy did into him. In the NFL you have to be ready made at this point. An NFL coach isn't going to take time to teach RGIII the basics. Hopefully he has learned that this year and can hit the ground running. I wouldn't put money on it, but then again, I wouldn't be surprised to see a VASTLY improved (mechanically) RGIII next year.

it could happen that we don't have either Cousins or Griffin on the roster next season

I think that's highly unlikely. Cousins will most likely be franchised if a cap friendly deal isn't worked out. IMHO, that is one of the reasons we aren't hearing anything regarding contract negotiations with Cousins right now (and the fact we are in the playoff hunt). As far as RGIII, it will be interesting to see what happens. A part of me still wants him here, but I just don't see that happening if Scot/Gruden commit to Cousins.

[OldSchool]

The have to resign him they just have to and I don't care if they over pay him. The emergence of Cousins and the hiring of Scot are the most hopeful thing I've seen since Marty got canned. I never got excited when Gibbs came back because I felt sure Snyder would mess things up, Robert and 2012 was fun but I knew all long how it would end, I just don't belief in running QB's. Scot and Jay bucking Snyder and going with Cousins who is having a tremendous season running Gruden's offense is the most really hopeful and grounded thing we've had since Marty finished strong and it looked like we'd have a contender. Snyder screwed that up, he better not screw this up!

Pay Cousins, pay him crazy money, pay him 30,40 or 50% too much I don't care but pay him and let's keep him for 10 years and win a championship or two!

[Burgundy&GoldForever]

No. Let him walk. We can find a guy who knows how to run a two minute offense anywhere. We need a quarterback who can't win games without a rushing attack. We need a quarterback who has no enthusiasm and hopes you hate that.

But above all else we need a quarterback who gets himself killed behind a suspect offensive line. I'm really tired of Cousins getting back up like he's not fragile. He should have been on IR weeks ago.