Here comes the cousins talk.

[SkinsJock]

the fact that he's not shown that he's a good NFL QB .... yet

Did you not watch last season at all?

the reason he did not get a long term deal is because the FO did not think he would be worth the money he wanted - do you think that his play this season has proven that he's worth $20M+ - based on how he played last season, how much money do you think we should have paid him?


THIS SEASON he's got an opportunity to get a lot of money, he has not done that yet, despite his stats

the season has 11 games left - hopefully he gets a mega deal next season

[Prowl33]

Look up Kirk's career stats. If you compare to every other QB in the league playing today, minus the rookies, he ranks 9th in qbr, and 7th in completion %.

There is no way you can tell me we shouldn't keep who is up to this point the 9th best qb in the league, with how hard it is to find a decent QB. That's a HUGE roll of the dice with drafting and would likely not work out, free agency will be garbage, always is for qbs.

If we are smart, cousins is here to stay barring a major decline on his part.

[StorminMormon86]

the fact that he's not shown that he's a good NFL QB .... yet

Did you not watch last season at all?

the reason he did not get a long term deal is because the FO did not think he would be worth the money he wanted - do you think that his play this season has proven that he's worth $20M+ - based on how he played last season, how much money do you think we should have paid him?


THIS SEASON he's got an opportunity to get a lot of money, he has not done that yet, despite his stats

the season has 11 games left - hopefully he gets a mega deal next season

You keep insisting he's not a "good QB"...last season proved that he is. Can he do it again this year? Remains to be seen. But, he has proven already that he's a "good QB". Stop with that nonsense.

[SkinsJock]

OK! he's "proved" that he's a good NFL QB - why did we not give him a long term contract at what a "good NFL QB" is worth?
MAYBE because of what we saw him "prove" in 2015 - Cousins & his camp think he "proved" that he's worth more than $20M a season

Cousins wanted a chance to get a big contract - hopefully he will do that in the next 11 games because so far all he's "proven" is that he was a good NFL QB in 2015 - FYI, that's not worth squat

OR

maybe you think we owe him something for what he did in 2015

it would be nice to see Cousins play and prove that he's worth $20M+

[mastdark81]

Look up Kirk's career stats. If you compare to every other QB in the league playing today, minus the rookies, he ranks 9th in qbr, and 7th in completion %.

There is no way you can tell me we shouldn't keep who is up to this point the 9th best qb in the league, with how hard it is to find a decent QB. That's a HUGE roll of the dice with drafting and would likely not work out, free agency will be garbage, always is for qbs.

If we are smart, cousins is here to stay barring a major decline on his part.

Look at it like this. Aaron Rodgers is one of the best qb's in the NFL, the Packers organization while not drafting great of recent have drafted at a decent level over the years. Aaron Rodgers consistently is kicked out of the playoffs early year to year.

Aaron Rodgers one of the few qb's that can win games without great talent around him right? He's still kicked out the playoffs early most of the time.

[mastdark81]

For those that don't want to read my long paragraph the NFL has proven to work like this. Good quarterbacks can win Super Bowls with Great players around him. Great quarterbacks can win Super Bowls with Good players around him.

Our defense are not a top 15 defense. We cannot afford to pay our qb that money even if he is worth it. Let him walk and don't be afraid to find an alternative if you want to win a Super Bowl.

[Prowl33]

You forgot 1 thing. Bad qbs don't win super bowls. Cousins is in the top 1/3 of the league, giving us a good shot at the playoffs every year, and an eventual super bowl trip if we draft well and coach well. Drop cousins, you'll either have to give up the farm to draft a top 3 qb (look at stats for Winston, Mariota, luck, and griffin) so that will probably backfire. Or you draft a 2nd tier qb (even lower probability of success) or you get one in FA (your going to overpay for underperfomance)

So, unless you want to give up on being a playoff team for atleast another 3 years, if kirk plays well, you pay the man the money.

Plus, with the salary cap rising about 5 mil per year, past year 2, the impact isn't that bad anyways with a well structured deal.

[riggofan]

For those that don't want to read my long paragraph the NFL has proven to work like this. Good quarterbacks can win Super Bowls with Great players around him. Great quarterbacks can win Super Bowls with Good players around him.

Our defense are not a top 15 defense. We cannot afford to pay our qb that money even if he is worth it. Let him walk and don't be afraid to find an alternative if you want to win a Super Bowl.

That's a fair point and an interesting comment. I have three disagreements with what you wrote:

1) The money issue is kind of BS. I'm not worried about the $$ amount as long as its not a deal that prevents the team from re-signing our own free agents. I'm *pretty* sure that such a deal is possible. Like you said, good teams all over the league - Steelers, Seahawks, Packers, etc; - are paying their QBs franchise money and are still able to draft and sign great players around them. Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews do play on the same team. Ben Roethlisberger does have a great WR on the team with him. Its not either/or, and teams should expect to be paying a starting QB a fair % of the cap.

2) Furthermore: We are not going to buy our way to a top 15 defense. That's complete nonsense. What we pay our QB is not going to affect that. The only way to really improve our defense is to do what we've done on offense. Draft quality players.

3) If Cousins proves to be just an OK QB, I would accept if the team let him walk, but there has to be a legit alternative. Ryan Fitzpatrick is not it. Rolling the dice on some guy like Brock Osweiler next year is not acceptable. We have a guy right now who is giving us a decent shot at least to win every Sunday. I think fans are forgetting what it was like to go year after year through Grossman, Beck, Campbell, Collins, Ramsey, Hasselbeck, Matthews, Wuerfel, Banks, etc; etc;

I would also add that this whole, "We're not going to win a Super Bowl with Cousins" thing is borderline hilarious. Slow down, my friend. Let's see the team have back to back .500+ seasons before we start worrying about can we get to a SB or not.

[Prowl33]

I also do the understand why people point to the franchise tag in regards to him not being good or the team not having faith in him.

He's not on the franchise tag because he now needs to prove he is a good qb. He is on the tag because he is ALREADY a good QB and needs to prove that he can do it on a consistent basis. It was all reward and no risk for the team, and outside of kirk folding for a 3 year 15mil deal, which would of been dumb of him, there was no chance he would of gotten a huge long term contract.

Btw. Right now kirk is the 2nd best QB of that draft, yes ahead of Andrew luck, who is the highest paid player in the league. Lucks issues may be a lot of the team too, but he is also not playing well.

[StorminMormon86]

Maybe yesterday's game was the one where Cousins finally woke up and whipped him into gear. He finally extended plays and played "sandlot" ball. Glad to see that.

[riggofan]

He's not on the franchise tag because he now needs to prove he is a good qb. He is on the tag because he is ALREADY a good QB and needs to prove that he can do it on a consistent basis.

hah. Its kind of insane to believe that the team would franchise tag a player who wasn't "good". If you really believed Kirk Cousins was a bad QB or just lucky or whatever, you could save $20m, let him walk and give the job to Colt McCoy.

[SkinsJock]

He's not on the franchise tag because he now needs to prove he is a good qb. He is on the tag because he is ALREADY a good QB and needs to prove that he can do it on a consistent basis.

hah. Its kind of insane to believe that the team would franchise tag a player who wasn't "good". If you really believed Kirk Cousins was a bad QB or just lucky or whatever, you could save $20m, let him walk and give the job to Colt McCoy.

Cousins had a good season (2015) and wanted what he felt was fair market value - he received a fair offer but felt he could do better - If Cousins were not a "good NFL QB" he would not be getting the $19M+ he's getting this season - he now has a whole season to get a good long term deal ($16M-18M)

hopefully he starts playing better so we can keep him here and be able to pay all our good players what they are worth

[mastdark81]

You forgot 1 thing. Bad qbs don't win super bowls. Cousins is in the top 1/3 of the league, giving us a good shot at the playoffs every year, and an eventual super bowl trip if we draft well and coach well. Drop cousins, you'll either have to give up the farm to draft a top 3 qb (look at stats for Winston, Mariota, luck, and griffin) so that will probably backfire. Or you draft a 2nd tier qb (even lower probability of success) or you get one in FA (your going to overpay for underperfomance)

So, unless you want to give up on being a playoff team for atleast another 3 years, if kirk plays well, you pay the man the money.

Plus, with the salary cap rising about 5 mil per year, past year 2, the impact isn't that bad anyways with a well structured deal.

You are assuming if we don't get a Top 5 overall qb we do not get a good qb though. That is absolutely false in the NFL landscape, to think that if you get a QB low 1st rd or lower that they cannot succeed. I can name Aaron Rodgers went low 1st rd. If you have faith in our gm then you gotta have faith that he can find a qb gem and groom them into a Super Bowl winner. Kirk is probably middle of the pack guy. But you forget we have top 3 weapons for him. Kirk is not doing anything special right now that most qb's won't be able to do. He's middle of pack. He's making the same mistakes each game that a rookie may make (and this is not a diss I'm glad we have him). Signing Kirk will mean we will not be able to keep a few guys on offense and will not be able to retain or make good additions to the defense. Thats all Im saying. At this point am I wrong to say Dak Prescott is already a better prospect than Kirk Cousins and he's only a rookie? Some say he's already playing better and he was a 4th round pick. You cannot over pay at the qb position. Other positions you can get away with but he's simply not a true franchise guy.

[mastdark81]

For those that don't want to read my long paragraph the NFL has proven to work like this. Good quarterbacks can win Super Bowls with Great players around him. Great quarterbacks can win Super Bowls with Good players around him.

Our defense are not a top 15 defense. We cannot afford to pay our qb that money even if he is worth it. Let him walk and don't be afraid to find an alternative if you want to win a Super Bowl.

That's a fair point and an interesting comment. I have three disagreements with what you wrote:

1) The money issue is kind of BS. I'm not worried about the $$ amount as long as its not a deal that prevents the team from re-signing our own free agents. I'm *pretty* sure that such a deal is possible. Like you said, good teams all over the league - Steelers, Seahawks, Packers, etc; - are paying their QBs franchise money and are still able to draft and sign great players around them. Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews do play on the same team. Ben Roethlisberger does have a great WR on the team with him. Its not either/or, and teams should expect to be paying a starting QB a fair % of the cap.

2) Furthermore: We are not going to buy our way to a top 15 defense. That's complete nonsense. What we pay our QB is not going to affect that. The only way to really improve our defense is to do what we've done on offense. Draft quality players.

3) If Cousins proves to be just an OK QB, I would accept if the team let him walk, but there has to be a legit alternative. Ryan Fitzpatrick is not it. Rolling the dice on some guy like Brock Osweiler next year is not acceptable. We have a guy right now who is giving us a decent shot at least to win every Sunday. I think fans are forgetting what it was like to go year after year through Grossman, Beck, Campbell, Collins, Ramsey, Hasselbeck, Matthews, Wuerfel, Banks, etc; etc;

I would also add that this whole, "We're not going to win a Super Bowl with Cousins" thing is borderline hilarious. Slow down, my friend. Let's see the team have back to back .500+ seasons before we start worrying about can we get to a SB or not.

But the difference is we have Kirk Cousins not Ben Rothliesburger or Brady. He will need those players around him to succeed. I mean look at management's actions the past few years? They have done everything they can to put guys on the offensive side of the ball. Seattle wouldn't be able to keep Garcon and DJax. Thing is they don't have that talent at the WR position. You forgot we already signed Jordan Reed to a huge deal, Garcon and Jackson are getting like 9 mil each this year. You can't sustain that level of residual cap gain year to year...somebody gotta go or take a pay cut. He's simply not playing at the level of those qb's or if he is he haven't accomplished what they have in the past.

We got Breeland contract coming up, Baker hell Murphy may want some cash. You gotta look at the big picture. I'm not saying that you can buy your way to a good defense but if the players are good you will need CAP space to retain them for consistency. Or if you need to add a player here or there you have the opportunity to do so.

Packers have been a team that have been financially responsible and draft well and they have been one of the most consistent teams in the league year to year with always a chance to win a SB with a few pieces added.

You are overvaluing Kirk's play haha. He's done nothing! You can find another Kirk each NFL draft and may have one that could perform better on the team. There's two guys that just came out that they are putting over Cousins and they are rookies. We have literally the best weapons tandem of any crew in the NFL. DJax is probably top 5 deep threat in the NFL HIstory, have one of the best route running TE's ever in Jordan Reed. We seen what happened when he didn't have those two. He's not made up to make plays on his own consistently, he needs balance and there is nothing wrong with that, obviously we can win with him but you gotta put more resources in other positions and not clog up everything at the qb spot regardless.

And furthermore even if he was a TOP 3 qb my post prior to this one indicate you still cannot win a Super Bowl with your qb making 21+ PER YEAR being an elite player.

[mastdark81]

Maybe yesterday's game was the one where Cousins finally woke up and whipped him into gear. He finally extended plays and played "sandlot" ball. Glad to see that.

Yeah but why do you have to ask a 28 year old qb to play ball and not be robotic? He's dictated by the media and fans. He never even spoke about "extended plays" until the media put it in his head and now you can tell when he does it, its not natural but predetermined to extend the play. If we all said this week Kirk should dance in the endzone he probably would go dance in the endzone.

I'd rather him play KIRK ball, forget what everybody say and play his type of ball that comes natural to him. That was RG3's problem, he let the fans get in his head about sliding after that 1st concussion and then didn't know if he wanted to slide or run a guy over. So he was indecisive about it. It have to be natural, cannot let people get in your head.

Kirk has improved though with everything and numbers may not show it but I think he is even a step ahead of where he was at this time last year. So that is a plus, but he has to just get a more natural feel for the game don't be Gruden at qb or the fans at qb be Kirk Cousins and then he will play better.

[mastdark81]

and I'm not saying don't resign him. Sign him for what we think is appropriate. Trust me he will sign less than 20 mil...compared to going to the Browns somewhere lol. We have the leverage.

[Deadskins]

and I'm not saying don't resign him. Sign him for what we think is appropriate. Trust me he will sign less than 20 mil...compared to going to the Browns somewhere lol. We have the leverage.

The season's not over yet. Who has the leverage depends on how he plays the rest of the season, and how far the team goes with him at QB.

[riggofan]

You are assuming if we don't get a Top 5 overall qb we do not get a good qb though. That is absolutely false in the NFL landscape, to think that if you get a QB low 1st rd or lower that they cannot succeed. I can name Aaron Rodgers went low 1st rd.

Nope, I'm not assuming that at all. My feeling though on drafting a QB is that its still risky and rolling the dice on an unknown. Maybe you get Aaron Rodgers in the late first round or maybe you get another RG3 or maybe you just get a guy who needs two or three years to develop while the team goes 5-11.

Good conversation though, man. I don't completely disagree with the things you're saying. I think my personal preference would be to see Cousins signed to a deal where the team could get out of it in like three or four years. If the price tag on it is $19/20m/yr, I don't really care. (That price is going to look comparatively cheap three years from now.) Draft a QB fairly high in the next two years, late first or second, whom they can groom in case Cousins hits his ceiling.

[riggofan]

There's two guys that just came out that they are putting over Cousins and they are rookies.

lol. I'm going to save this quote. You can tell me again in December how Wentz is playing so much better than Cousins. Here's his next seven games: Vikes, Cowboys, Giants, Falcons, Seahawks, Packers, Bengals. Those guys are going to be 3-9 when we see them again in December.

[Prowl33]

and I'm not saying don't resign him. Sign him for what we think is appropriate. Trust me he will sign less than 20 mil...compared to going to the Browns somewhere lol. We have the leverage.

We don't have the leverage, the jets, browns, bears, maybe 49ers, etc will likely overpay for whatever it is that kirk does. If he plays lights out rest of the year, he would likely get an Andrew like contract from someone if not us, if he plays just good but not amazing, he will still get over 20mil a year from one of the above teams. Good qb's are in short supply

[riggofan]

Good qb's are in short supply

It amazes me that fans of THIS team are so dismissive of that fact.

[cowboykillerzRGiii]

Dak is not better then Kirk.. he has the best oline and weapons around him to ease the growing pains... that and dink and dunk football... and Wentz just faced reality.

Kirk is worth keeping. I've been on both sides of the fence... and I hated the pick six as much as the blown cowpuke game. BUT he is managing the offence effectively, and I hope he gains confidence heading jato the meat of the season- I predict he earns the damn contract, djax or Garçon is gone, and hopefully Doctson is a baller with Crowder and whom ever we pay to stay

[SkinsJock]

Cousins wanted an opportunity to get a good deal by playing well - I doubt that he plays badly enough to not be back here next season

Cousins will be given a fair offer to stay here with the full understanding of how the QB salaries are escalating and how valuable a good QB is - Cousins has not even come close to showing that he should have gotten paid anywhere close to what he was asking

[Irn-Bru]

Dak is not better then Kirk.. he has the best oline and weapons around him to ease the growing pains... that and dink and dunk football...

I hate to admit it, but it looks like he is. Don't discount the Skins offensive line, which is playing nearly as well as Dallas' right now. And weapons? Kirk has at least as many as Dak . . . maybe more. Frankly, I think the two situations are pretty comparable, and Dak has looked like the better player.

and Wentz just faced reality.

Kirk is worth keeping. I've been on both sides of the fence... and I hated the pick six as much as the blown cowpuke game. BUT he is managing the offence effectively, and I hope he gains confidence heading jato the meat of the season- I predict he earns the damn contract, djax or Garçon is gone, and hopefully Doctson is a baller with Crowder and whom ever we pay to stay

I agree that we should keep him. Seems to me that Kirk is about a top 10-15 QB normally, consistently, who has learned to keep mistakes to a minimum. We've also seen flashes that he can go on a hot streak that puts him up there with the best QBs in the league. If we can continue to build a contender and then get one of those streaks around playoff time, watch out.

Pay the man. The FO was smart not to splurge on a $25M contract this past offseason. Look at how the Texans are already regretting their Osweiler contract. Meanwhile, Kirk has come back down to Earth and doesn't look like he's quite earned that top-3 deal. I think he knows that too, and his agent and the team will find a happy medium this offseason.

From there, we continue to build.

[Deadskins]

Seems to me that Kirk is about a top 10-15 QB normally, consistently, who has learned to keep mistakes to a minimum. We've also seen flashes that he can go on a hot streak that puts him up there with the best QBs in the league. If we can continue to build a contender and then get one of those streaks around playoff time, watch out.

Pay the man. The FO was smart not to splurge on a $25M contract this past offseason. Look at how the Texans are already regretting their Osweiler contract. Meanwhile, Kirk has come back down to Earth and doesn't look like he's quite earned that top-3 deal. I think he knows that too, and his agent and the team will find a happy medium this offseason.

Unless he goes on one of those streaks around playoff time.