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We reached the Tim Couch argument portion of the off-season much sooner than we usually do.

Ravens expected to sign Trent Richardson

Can't wait to see the coming comments hehe!

Ravens expected to sign Trent Richardson

Can't wait to see the coming comments hehe!

Tim did not suck

You are being a revisionist. The guy sucked. I mean sucked ass.

Tebow?

Oh...so what is that, a cheap shot? LOL....whatever dude.....Couch sucked.

You are being a revisionist. The guy sucked. I mean sucked ass.

Kap stinks and he has character issues of his own.

Source: The 2016 @NFL salary cap was just set at $155.27M.

Kirk Cousins is getting [franchise or transition] tagged. Shocker.

Damn!

Guenther on his free agents: Hue wants them all up in Cleveland.

Redskins can bluff all they want, but Kirk Cousins holds all the cards


Dan Snyder can hem and haw and dig in is heels and pretend that he has a tough decision to make, but in reality he has already been check mated. His back is against the wall and his quarterback has all of the leverage and his football people know it, and he'd be a fool to let Kirk Cousins go anywhere.


I dare say that Cousins is, in fact, going nowhere. Even for a franchise such as this one, notorious for its mismanagement and self-destruction, letting this emerging passer walk would be far too significant a potential faux pas.

The gamble isn't worth it, the stakes are too high, the risk is very profound and the Redskins are backed into a corner. No amount of whispering sweet nothings into the ears of certain media members or trying to create artificial leverage where no real leverage exists or playing word games will change that. Trying to shill the idea that RG3 could be an actual candidate to play quarterback for this team in 2016? Some in the media apparently are willing to perhaps buy it, but this is pure folly. It's beyond laughable to the point that neither team president and chief salesman Bruce Allen nor Snyder would never actually express that sentiment publicly themselves, and it does nothing to alter what the franchise is up against.

Cousins holds all the cards. His representatives know it. The true football people in the Redskins organization must understand it. Eventually, the dude who controls the budget -- Snyder -- had better grasp it, because the alternatives are scant and the past history with quarterbacks under this owner is grizzly and the best way for him to divide an organization that was finally starting to be unified by new general manager Scot McCloughan would be to undercut it all by mucking up this negotiation.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Cousins is a stud and will win a Super Bowl in Washington and he is everything you could ask for in a quarterback. But he just might be the best passer this franchise has seen in decades and he is viewed by the football operations department as a potential top-15 quarterback. He projects at the low end to be at least an Alex Smith type and he is a guy you can win with and, as much as anything else, this team has no clear plan to find a decent alternative, let alone an upgrade.

He rallied the locker room and helped eradicate the drama and sagas and BS that have long crippled this franchise and he helped establish an identity for the club and -- never to be underestimated in the eyes of an owner like Snyder -- he provided a sellable entity at the quarterback spot who fans and players alike could rally around.


To be clear, Cousins has several things going for him in these contract negotiations.

For starters, the franchise tag is generally a strong weapon for teams to employ, but in this case, at roughly $20M, it works firmly in Cousins' favor. Franchising or transitioning Cousins is the only way to keep him off the market (using a transition on a quarterback is counter-intuitive as you risk losing the player for no compensation at all while saving perhaps a few million bucks a year), and with a finite amount of time to make this decision (by the end of the month) and so much uncertainty if they let him walk, this figure serves Cousins very well. Once he is tagged he begins negotiating off this figure, and everyone knows it. Tagging him only helps his cause.

Next, if Cousins is allowed to walk, that's perfectly fine with him as well. He'd love to stay but he is a big boy and it's just business. He was a pro as he waited to get to play and he always took the high road and produced when it mattered most in 2015, and for that he is clearly positioned as the best potential free agent quarterback available. Considering this draft class of quarterbacks isn't exactly blowing people away with its early returns, and the fact that there are a number of clubs in the market for quarterbacks at this very moment (including the Jets, who were interested in landing Cousins in trade a year ago, and Texans and Browns and Rams and Broncos and Eagles and 49ers), that puts him in good stead. All is takes is one team to offer him in the range of $15-$18M a season for Cousins to be not only set for life for generations to come, but surrounded by a team committed to making him its quarterback of the present and the future. And few teams have been more desperate for just that sort of player to emerge than the Redskins. So I am to believe they are going to let him walk away -- for maybe a comp pick at the end of the third round in 2017 -- over money? Given this owner, who has thrown bad money after bad players for more or less the totality of his existence in the NFL? OK.

So let's say Cousins does walk. Where are the Redskins going? Sam Bradford? Trading for Colin Kaepernick? RG3? (Come on, they just redshirted him and wouldn't let him anywhere close to the field in 2015, and they aren't paying him his $17M fifth-year option in 2016 and he wants absolutely, positively nothing to do with them. So, seriously, what are they doing? They won too many games last year -- with Cousins helping lead them to the postseason -- to have a viable quarterback fall to them in the draft. And there ain't no way McCloughan is offering up a ransom to move up for any of the quasi-prospects available in this draft (and reprise Snyder's RG3 mistake). The bottom line is above-average play at the quarterback position comes at a steep premium. It's a tax most teams know they must pay, and it's a part of doing business in the NFL.

So, to be clear: If Cousins gets tagged, he wins. And if he is allowed to walk, he wins.

And the Redskins have no clear path to anything close to victory at his position if he does in fact hit the market in a few weeks. And they have been unable to get it right at this position since, hell, Mark Rypien? And, as NFC East division winners, it would be bad for business and football if they took a major step back in 2016. And after botching the blockbuster trade for RG3 just a few years ago there ain't no way in hell they are going to be giving up a bounty to move up to draft a quarterback.

And, they had $17M earmarked for RG3 in 2016 that can be easily shifted over to Cousins. And, contrary to the drivel some are reporting, Cousins has never asked for $20M a season or anything close to it. And, whether it be at the end of this month or in the middle of July -- when the deadline to extend players on the franchise tag approaches -- I suspect this quarterback observes the value of a bird in hand and some legitimate guaranteed money and while he's anything but a pushover he'll be reasoned as well. Tagging him buys a lot of time for a deal to be worked out, while failing to tag him could end up being quite quick and finite.

At any other position, given the tight sample size of Cousins' best work, I could probably understand going in a different direction or getting cute with this decision. But for this franchise, at this position, at this particular time, they really have next to no choice, and out-thinking themselves, or getting cheap now, could come with the steepest of ramifications. It's a luxury Snyder cannot afford, and a mistake of this magnitude could haunt his franchise for quite some time and any deal could be structured in a manner in which the guaranteed money -- and actual risk -- is contained within a few years.

The risk of letting a winning quarterback march out of town not yet even in his prime, to perhaps even a team in the same division, is far greater. I know it. And Cousins knows it. And the Skins know it, too.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/jaso...s-all-the-cards

Do you like depressing people?

Thanks.

Fins have officially turned in paperwork placing the transition tag on Olivier Vernon. Given their cap issues, vulnerable to an offer sheet