ESPN.com: Kirk Cousins contract talks with Redskins on positive track

[TD_washingtonredskins]

2 hours ago, PartyPosse said:

Right or wrong doesn't have the benefit of hindsight. It's lazy and a poor argument to debate something that requires knowing the future. The difference between making the "right" decision that ends up costing the team an extra 4-6 mill a year vs making the "wrong" decision (he falls apart and becomes terrible) costs the team 18-20 million a year or, based on Houston's predicament, a second round draft pick - even though it probably would have cost more since Brock's contract could essentially be terminated after one year with minimal cap damage where Kirk's probably would have been a lot more detrimental to a team's position over a longer period of time. 

I'm still struggling to understand...

 

I've conceded that there was logic in waiting after 2015. It's not a decision I'll crush the team for. Having said that, there were plenty of people calling for an extension at that time. In fact, there were some (our ex-GM) who wanted to lock Cousins in sooner than that. The cheaper the contract, the smaller the risk. And, plenty of personnel people don't need a QB to demonstrate success over multiple seasons to understand that player's aptitude. That's why we all aren't NFL GMs. 

 

All of that aside, whenever a team makes a decision it ultimately turns out to be a good or bad decision based on the results that follow. Had Cousins bombed in 2016 then we'd be certainly singing the FO's praises. He didn't, he improved upon 2015 so shouldn't we objectively be able to say that the FO missed out on signing him to a cheaper, more team-friendly deal? 

 

Look at this the other way...let's say the Redskins tomorrow sign Cousins to a 5 year/$100M contract. In the moment, we'd be celebrating. If Cousins horribly regresses and starts putting up Grossman numbers, they still will have ended up making the WRONG decision to sign him. Just because no one could blame them for doing so, doesn't change the grade when the results are in. 

[PartyPosse]

1 hour ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

Had Cousins bombed in 2016 then we'd be certainly singing the FO's praises. He didn't, he improved upon 2015 so shouldn't we objectively be able to say that the FO missed out on signing him to a cheaper, more team-friendly deal? 

I don't see how he improved. He threw less TD, more INT, lower Rating, lower completion percentage. The only aspect that was increased was yards, but I think a lot of that has to do with the defense being so poor that the team was constantly starting deep in their own zone.

 

if you want to argue that they faced a more difficult schedule defensively, sure, you absolutely can. But then the numbers you're going to get against a competitive schedule is borderline top ten. Also, compare his numbers between upper echelon defenses and lower and you'll see someone who capitalized on subpar D and struggled against the rest. Also, if you wanna look at how he finished both seasons, there was a definite decrease in performance.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

4 hours ago, Voice_of_Reason said:

Actually, I think that the option hurt Griffin more than it hurt him.  There was no way he was getting on the field because of the injury clause, unless he was the starter.  

 

I still don't think that it was GMSM's idea to do it.  Based on 2014 results, it was a little ludicrous because there's no way that anybody thought Griffin was worth the $16.2 million dollar option for 2016.  I'm pretty sure GMSM would have preferred to let Griffin play out year 4, and then renegotiate based on that. Because even if he had won the starting job, it's possible that he wouldn't have commanded that level of salary in 2016.  

 

Ironic, the 5th year option that was picked up on Griffin was either the same, or slightly higher than the offer the team made to Cousins for 2016.  I think I heard that they offered him 14-16/year.  But I can't remember exactly.  When they had committed 16 to Griffin coming off of a year where he couldn't stay healthy or play a lick.  

 

I still think that all the Griffin stuff was driven by Dan/Bruce, and GMSM sorta went along with it as long as it did no harm.  And they had to pick up the option in April, well before training camp.  I think the decision to pick up the option and any thought of Cousins being the starter were 2 completely separate thoughts at the time.  Picking up a $16.2 million dollar option on a player who had just had a second consecutive horrendous season was pretty soundly ridiculous. The thought that Cousins would emerge as a record setting QB at that time was also somewhat ridiculous.  My guess is that GMSM honestly thouhgt he'd have to go out and get 3 new QBs after the 2015 season.  The fact Cousins worked out was kindof a bonus. 

 

Griffin had an outstanding 2012 and a mediocre 2013 coming off an ACL tear (he had several excellent games that year as well, though). 2014 was shortened to a handful of games also due to injury. Kinda hard to reach a serious conclusion about his chances under those circumstances. And while they had to make a decision on his 5th year option before training camp, I was meaning that not being sold at all on Cousins after training camp would have further solidified the idea that taking the chance that Griffin could rebound was a good move. Seriously, you don't spend a ****load of resources to get a guy then give up on him because you you "just know" he wouldn't work out, unless there's something incredibly negative going on, like with Manziel. Lest we forget, it was said after 2013 as well that you could "just tell" Cousins would never be more than a backup...in fact, outside of two games in 2014 the same was being said again of Cousins as that season ended. You don't get benched down to 3rd string just for ****s and giggles lol...and again, outside of one disastrous injury, there was little to fear in picking up his option. An he did go all of 2013 without injury, sometimes I think we just mesh all three years together as one injury after another.

 

As you alluded to, though, Cousins should be hella thankful they did pick up Griffin's 5th year option lol...the Skins had every reason in the world to bench RG3 after the 2015 preseason and that whole concussion fiasco. without the option, though, they would have had every reason in the world to keep him as starter just to "make sure" their mistake was in drafting him, not in letting him go.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

1 hour ago, PartyPosse said:

I don't see how he improved. He threw less TD, more INT, lower Rating, lower completion percentage. The only aspect that was increased was yards, but I think a lot of that has to do with the defense being so poor that the team was constantly starting deep in their own zone.

 

if you want to argue that they faced a more difficult schedule defensively, sure, you absolutely can. But then the numbers you're going to get against a competitive schedule is borderline top ten. Also, compare his numbers between upper echelon defenses and lower and you'll see someone who capitalized on subpar D and struggled against the rest. Also, if you wanna look at how he finished both seasons, there was a definite decrease in performance.

OK, fair point. I'll agree that he didn't improve and I shouldn't have said that. He didn't regress though. If anything, he established that he was a consistently good QB who was going to complete 2 out of every 3 passes and end the year in the high-90s when it comes to QB rating. 

[PartyPosse]

1 hour ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

OK, fair point. I'll agree that he didn't improve and I shouldn't have said that. He didn't regress though. If anything, he established that he was a consistently good QB who was going to complete 2 out of every 3 passes and end the year in the high-90s when it comes to QB rating. 

And if that's who he is then I would be happy with it, but that unfortunately doesn't make him an elite QB. Not until he has a resume that says he is at least capable of elevating his game at opportune times. He had that opportunity to end off this season and in 2 of the final 3 games he faltered (the other was against a defense ranked in the bottom half of the league and with nothing to play for).

 

Listen, I'm not going to be one of those guys who says "I told you so" if he fails. I would be the first person to admit to being wrong if he becomes all that and I would do so with a smile on my face. There is absolutely no redeeming value in being right about his lack of potential because in the end it's bad for the team. I'm not rooting for him to fall either. In a perfect world the team signs him to a fair contact to both sides and he plays admirably and we become a model franchise on the field. I just haven't seen anything in him that makes me feel confident it will happen. This isn't just an NFL thing - he had major problems at MSU winning timely games. His stats in bowl games are shockingly bad and there's a reason the guy fell to the 4th round (and who knows how much further if Washington doesn't take him?). He's not a first round pedigree. The way he's been playing far exceeds the expectations placed upon him when he was drafted, so from that deduction, there is absolutely NO way of concluding that he's just reached the tip of his potential. Again, if how he played these past two years are who he is from here on out, sign me up at a reasonable rate. But, and I know this isn't reality, pay him based on what he is worth and not based on what else is out there and/or because he's better than what we've had over the last 20 odd years. 

[BleedBNG]

The FO could be offering KC $22M a year (for 5 yrs.) with maybe half guaranteed. Of course he and his agent are waiting for something better. As the deadline hits the 11th hour, the FO stays with the $22M a year but changes it to 3 yrs. ALL fully guaranteed ($66M). That would beat Lucks guaranteed deal by $19M. We might pick up a QB in next years draft class that could work out a couple of years behind KC. This I can go along with.

[Tsailand]

Mayweather is going to get paid more for a 15 minute fight than Kirk has made in his entire career.  Nobody says he doesn't deserve it. 

 

Likewise, Kirk deserves what the market will bear.  We had chances to get him at a discount, but we wasted those chances. Now we will have to pay his real value, or someone else will.

[wit33]

Great stuff today, gentlemen. A fun read both ways.

 

Go Skins!

[PartyPosse]

1 hour ago, Tsailand said:

We had chances to get him at a discount, but we wasted those chances. 

So I don't see it like that. I see it as every year we had a chance to sign him we offered him a fair contract that was in line with his performance. He never seemed interested in being paid for what he had done. After 2015, what he wanted was by no means a discount considering he was banking on a 6 game stretch. Same with this year. The opportunity for a "discount" was never in the books. 

[CapsSkins]

1 minute ago, PartyPosse said:

So I don't see it like that. I see it as every year we had a chance to sign him we offered him a fair contract that was in line with his performance. He never seemed interested in being paid for what he had done. After 2015, what he wanted was by no means a discount considering he was banking on a 6 game stretch. Same with this year. The opportunity for a "discount" was never in the books. 

 

The only thing atypical about this situation is Kirk's willingness to bet on himself by playing on the franchise tag and comfortably accept the accompanying risk. 

[TD_washingtonredskins]

4 hours ago, CapsSkins said:

 

The only thing atypical about this situation is Kirk's willingness to bet on himself by playing on the franchise tag and comfortably accept the accompanying risk. 

I don't agree completely there. 

 

Most quarterbacks who hit the end of their rookie contract AND are playing well have put more games on tape than Cousins did. The team only really started gathering data points a few games before they needed to be making decisions about him long-term. So, in that respect, this was a pretty atypical situation. 

[Reaper Skins]

Makes me wonder if they held off with an offer to Kirk until Doug Williams was hired so that he could reap the positive media spin for the move.  

 

Old Franchise QB helping secure the new one as his first act in in office.  Very poetic.  And it would legitimize Doug's hire right off the bat by giving him a huge amount of brownie points with the media and fan base.  People would basically give him a free pass on every move he makes for the next 5 years if he ends up signing Kirk this offseason.

[redskinss]

Im not a numbers evaluator im an eye test evaluator.

For me the last ten games of 2015 kirk passed the eye test with flying colors, he looked sharp, crisp and most importantly he threw everything with so much confidence.

2016 may not have had a huge dropoff in his numbers but personally i don't think he looked as good as he did the last ten games of 2015 and to me that's why i don't mind that the redskins have proceeded very carefully.

Far too often teams have thought they were signing their franchise quarterback to a megadeal and they turned into a dud.

Having said that i also feel that with the lack of options out there and importance of the position id rather gamble and give him a mega deal than let him walk.

Teams can recover alot easier from a bad contract than they can from having no quarterback to lead them.

[TheGreek1973]

All I got to say is this.  Between Campbell and RGIII this team gave up 5 1sts (two to get the QBs) a 2nd a 3rd and a 4th.  Why would anyone in this organization even remotely contemplate taking another gamble on a rookie when the guy you have drafted is right there in your team and has this offense playing well.  Are you guys going to sit there and tell me its better for this team to spend 1st and 2nd round draft picks instead of maybe overpaying a QB we all know can run this offense?  Seriously what is more valuable for a football team another 5 million on average cap space a year or picks in the first and or 2nd round?  And yea the QB class of next year is strong, but what if Cousins balls out, has us in the playoffs or even 8-8.  To get at the decent QBs we will be spending huge draft capital, hell it could be easily what we gave up for RGIII or close to it.  You skeptics are ok with that?  And in the end is still a gamble the dude will not work out.  (again look at Campbell, look at RGIII).

 

If this team doesn't sign Cousins to a LTD it will be a HUGE mistake, the biggest under Synder, and we all know there have been other huge ones.  Remember also this OL is all set to pay together for the next 3 years at a high level.  Reed maybe if we are lucky has another 3 years in him.  Pryor if he has a great season would he be ok signing LTD with Cousins gone?  Doctson, if he progresses, do we know he will continue to do so with a rookie or with stopgap Colt as a QB?

 

This is not about the money, its about the resources this team will lose if they choose to go with a rookie in 2018 or 2019.  Hell making Cousins the most expensive QB in the history of the NFL still is cheaper when you consider the hit we will take on adding young talent in the next two drafts, and keeping great players on our team.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

My biggest issue with the "he really REALLY has to prove it" argument is that it shouldn't take an NFL franchise as long as it takes the fans to trust what they see. Say what you want about our dysfunction, but we have legitimate NFL scouts and personnel evaluators whose job is to determine if players are good. Even though it's reasonable that fans are skeptical or only 70% convinced about a certain player based on what they see on Sundays, it's just as reasonable that the team should know much more quickly and accurately. 

 

At this point, anyone who does this for a living should have seen enough to determine either:

 

1) Cousins isn't worth the price tag (in which case the money we've paid him for the past two years is insane)

or 

2) Cousins is worth the price tag (in which case not locking him in on a longer-term deal is insane)

 

There's really no objective way to look at this situation and believe we haven't screwed it up to an extent. Spinning it forward, the best way to minimize the damage is to sign him ASAP and actually start the clock on a deal that will eventually be a bargain (as the cap continues to go up and his percentage of the cap continues to go down). 

[NoCalMike]

I suppose the issue is that when it comes to the QB position it is hard to keep one around for any length of time without paying them. A lot.  Unless the QB is Rodgers, Rothelisburger, Brady, Brees etc etc.....you will likely be overpaying for their services even if they are a solid QB.  The hard part to evaluate is just how much you are willing to overpay. 

[Tay]

The issue with just saying "They need to get it done" is that we aren't in the room, and we don't know what each side is looking for.

 

If Kirk is seeking a fair market deal, and the team doesn't get it done then I feel like they are dropping the ball.

 

If Kirk is attempting to use his leverage to get a deal much greater than market value, then the team should not sign him.

 

I can't say the team is screwing this up or that Kirk is being unreasonable because I don't know the details. In fact, the team and Kirk has kept the negotiations out of the public for the most part, so no one can really give an honest assessment of the situation other than "it doesn't look good" or "it's looking better".

[NoCalMike]

5 minutes ago, TD_washingtonredskins said:

My biggest issue with the "he really REALLY has to prove it" argument is that it shouldn't take an NFL franchise as long as it takes the fans to trust what they see. 

 

I agree for the most part. I assume with Cousins the issue with that is he didn't begin his career as your typical rookie that had been drafted to either start from day one or even necessarily be groomed into the starter.  Going back to 2012, if everything had worked out as planned. Robert would have been the franchise QB, Cousins would be his reliable backup for a few seasons until his rookie contract was up where at that point he would either sign a backup-QB contract or sign with another team as a starter.   Things got messy pretty much as soon as Cousins showed some poise in a tough situation versus Baltimore, and then showed signs of being a starting caliber the following week in Cleveland without using the more "gimmicky" style of offense that Robert had been flourishing with. 

 

It wasn't until what, 2015 that Cousins became the full-time, no doubt starting QB of this team. So now the franchise is being tasked with ponying up an incredible amount of money based on Cousin's being a 2 year starter.  There are a lot of factors to weigh in how much money they do or don't offer. Cousins has been good, very good at times. Maybe you could argue he's had moments of "greatness" too?  But he has also seem to lay some eggs in big games dare I say even regressed in those situations.  I don't know if we can say for sure that the verdict is out on Cousins one way or another at this point.

[TD_washingtonredskins]

Just now, NoCalMike said:

 

I agree for the most part. I assume with Cousins the issue with that is he didn't begin his career as your typical rookie that had been drafted to either start from day one or even necessarily be groomed into the starter.  Going back to 2012, if everything had worked out as planned. Robert would have been the franchise QB, Cousins would be his reliable backup for a few seasons until his rookie contract was up where at that point he would either sign a backup-QB contract or sign with another team as a starter.   Things got messy pretty much as soon as Cousins showed some poise in a tough situation versus Baltimore, and then showed signs of being a starting caliber the following week in Cleveland without using the more "gimmicky" style of offense that Robert had been flourishing with. 

 

It wasn't until what, 2015 that Cousins became the full-time, no doubt starting QB of this team. So now the franchise is being tasked with ponying up an incredible amount of money based on Cousin's being a 2 year starter.  There are a lot of factors to weigh in how much money they do or don't offer. Cousins has been good, very good at times. Maybe you could argue he's had moments of "greatness" too?  But he has also seem to lay some eggs in big games dare I say even regressed in those situations.  I don't know if we can say for sure that the verdict is out on Cousins one way or another at this point.

 

Yep, it's definitely unique and the window was much smaller than most cases. Still though, through practices, pre-season games, and relief duty through 2014 plus all the reps as a starter through 2015 it seems like enough was there to make a decision at the time. And, unless McCloughan is lying, it sounds like there was enough for him to want to extend Cousins very early in 2015 (which would look like an absolute steal right now). 

 

Kevin Sheehan has stated this multiple times...all you really needed to know AFTER 2015 was the Cousins was more-than-likely to be your starter through 2017. If you believed that, a 3-4 year contract at market value would have been the wisest decision. You didn't have to believe he'd become Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers, just that he was going to be YOUR starter for the next 2-3 years. 

[Conn]

7 hours ago, PartyPosse said:

I see it as every year we had a chance to sign him we offered him a fair contract that was in line with his performance. He never seemed interested in being paid for what he had done.

 

You see it this way because you still don't understand how pro sports contracts work, or don't want to. You want to live in a reality where athlete contracts work like you described above, but they don't. There's literally nothing else to say about it until you start looking at it correctly. There's no "opinion" here, what you describe is objectively not how sports contracts are negotiated. 

[BatteredFanSyndrome]

2 hours ago, Reaper Skins said:

Makes me wonder if they held off with an offer to Kirk until Doug Williams was hired so that he could reap the positive media spin for the move.  

 

Old Franchise QB helping secure the new one as his first act in in office.  Very poetic.  And it would legitimize Doug's hire right off the bat by giving him a huge amount of brownie points with the media and fan base.  People would basically give him a free pass on every move he makes for the next 5 years if he ends up signing Kirk this offseason.

They made it pretty clear that Doug doesn't have much to do with Kirk getting a deal.  Otherwise, I'd agree with you on the PR standpoint.

[NewCliche21]

8 hours ago, PartyPosse said:

So I don't see it like that. I see it as every year we had a chance to sign him we offered him a fair contract that was in line with his performance. He never seemed interested in being paid for what he had done. After 2015, what he wanted was by no means a discount considering he was banking on a 6 game stretch. Same with this year. The opportunity for a "discount" was never in the books. 

 

Why in god's name would you EVER want to be paid on what you've done unless you're talking about already-established bonuses?

Everything is an audition to demonstrate your trajectory.  When negotiating a raise, you don't say, "This is how good I have been, so pay me for that level of work because that's all that you can expect out of me."  You say, "This is how good I've been, and I've shown that I can do a great job.  I'm in demand by others because of it as well as the reasonable prediction that I will continue to do better, so pay me on the basis of what I can be expected to do and how the market looks."

[purbeast]

I don't know if anyone was listening to the Junkies this morning around 6:45am or so, but both EB and Lurch seem to have some nuggets that they can't talk about on the air and from reliable sources, that there are a number of things outside of money from Kirk's camp that are reasons a deal is not done yet.  I really wish they could have gotten into it and it was kind of a dick move to tease it, but both of them think quite a bit of it has to do with nothing money related.

[PartyPosse]

1 hour ago, NewCliche21 said:

 

Why in god's name would you EVER want to be paid on what you've done unless you're talking about already-established bonuses?

Everything is an audition to demonstrate your trajectory.  When negotiating a raise, you don't say, "This is how good I have been, so pay me for that level of work because that's all that you can expect out of me."  You say, "This is how good I've been, and I've shown that I can do a great job.  I'm in demand by others because of it as well as the reasonable prediction that I will continue to do better, so pay me on the basis of what I can be expected to do and how the market looks."

My point is that we were never in a position where we could have had him at a discounted price. He wanted considerably more after 2016 season than we were interested in committing based off primarily a solid 6 game stretch. There was never a discount there. Same as now.

 

His intention has always been "I'll be in demand on open market so if you don't pay me someone will". That's fine, but to insinuate that the FO had an opportunity to sign him at a cheap deal is ludicrous.

2 hours ago, ConnSKINS26 said:

 

You see it this way because you still don't understand how pro sports contracts work, or don't want to. You want to live in a reality where athlete contracts work like you described above, but they don't. There's literally nothing else to say about it until you start looking at it correctly. There's no "opinion" here, what you describe is objectively not how sports contracts are negotiated. 

Again, I was just stating that at no point was the organization given an opportunity to sign Kirk at a discounted price. You maybe see it as such after the 2015 season but from an organizational standpoint you still have to take into consideration both market value and what you have seen from the player to judge their overall value. Even if Kirk wanted 20 million after 2015 because someone out there would be willing to pay it, that was not a discounted price. Every year value goes up due to both cap increases and what the tag represents in terms of guaranteed money. In both years Kirk was looking for high end for both.

[Califan007 The Constipated]

10 hours ago, PartyPosse said:

He never seemed interested in being paid for what he had done.

 

Yikes...you don't really want us to base contracts on that standard, do you? lol...paying for what players had done was Vinny and Snyder's philosophy in free agency for years.

 

 

 

My point is that we were never in a position where we could have had him at a discounted price. He wanted considerably more after 2016 season than we were interested in committing based off primarily a solid 6 game stretch. There was never a discount there. Same as now.

 

His intention has always been "I'll be in demand on open market so if you don't pay me someone will". That's fine, but to insinuate that the FO had an opportunity to sign him at a cheap deal is ludicrous.

 

I think what most people mean is that it would have been a "cheap", bargain deal relative to what we'd be paying now, and relative to what other QBs would be paid. Which is kind of ironic, in that even if we 'overpay' for him now it will seem like a "bargain" 3 years from now, much like you're saying Cousins' asking price a year ago wasn't cheap at the time.

 

I've always maintained that there really is no "bargain" price or "paying through the nose" for a QB when he's good. You only pay through the nose when he ends up sucking instead of improving lol...that's why I had zero problem with the franchise tag last year. The Skins didn't "gamble", they played it smart.