Betting what’s a best bet
Big payday in play for Redskins’ Cousins
Kirk Cousins is playing this season with house money. He’s also playing it smart, even though some feel otherwise.
Cousins’ decision to reject the Washington Redskins’ allegedly non-guaranteed five-year deal in May was the smartest call he’ll make this season, even if he leads his team to a Super Bowl victory. His decision to bet on himself was not a sucker’s bet. Rather, it made him the quarterbacking equivalent of a Major League Baseball player or, more simply, another way of saying they have a contract with you but you don’t have a contract with them.
What the Redskins reportedly wanted Cousins to do was accept a contract that looked big but wasn’t. It’s the NFL Way, but Cousins wisely said no way, Jose.
Under the reported offer, the Redskins would have lowered Cousins’ cap number and his 2017 salary from the $23.9 million he was guaranteed as a franchised player while offering him no real guarantees beyond the 2018 season and a total guaranteed of around $40 million.
After Cousins refused to sign yesterday, Redskins president Bruce Allen claimed they offered him $53 million in guaranteed money. Even if that is true, simply to play for the franchise tag in 2017 and again in 2018 would exceed that figure by $5.3 million and still make him a free agent in 2019. The only reason you’d take that is if you were thinking like most football players, which is to say without thinking.
The difference is why someone like portly Pablo Sandoval gets cut after two-plus abysmal seasons in Boston and still gets every penny of his $95 million deal while Adalius Thomas gets cut by the Patriots, after doing more than Pablo ever thought of and getting squat when he left, to use a financial euphemism that exists only in the NFL.
Sandoval got it because baseball players were willing to shut down the World Series. Pro football players don’t get it because they weren’t willing to even shut down the Hall of Fame Game.
Some said the danger for Cousins is that he could be hurt playing the most violent team sport in existence and thus reduce his value in future negotiations or, in a worst case scenario, see his career end. Actually he is facing no such problem because he has a guaranteed deal worth $43.9 million for two years. You can live on that for a long, long time unless you’re an idiot.
Cousins is the first quarterback in NFL history to play on a franchise tag two seasons in a row. What has that meant? It’s meant he got that $43.9 million win, lose or cut me. The only player in the league who had more guaranteed money is Eli Manning at $51 million. Andrew Luck and Joe Flacco signed new deals that didn’t guarantee them $43.9 million, and Derek Carr’s new contract of $125 million only contains $40 million in guarantees. So what did Cousins have to lose? Nothing. He’d already beaten their deals without giving up control of his services beyond this season.
If the Redskins were not willing to commit fully to him (meaning with guaranteed money equal to the market place) for 2019 what did he care? If they franchise him a third time it costs them $34,478,784 in 2018, meaning he would receive $78.3 million in fully guaranteed money, which is nearly double Carr’s deal with the Raiders.
If the Redskins put the transition tag on him next year to try and control his services that’s still a guaranteed $28,732,320, which still beats Carr’s deal and he’d be free to seek a better deal elsewhere or play another year and be a free agent at the age of 30. That point, likely freedom in 2018, actually may be the real point of Cousins’ decision to accept the franchise tag once again.
Just over 3,000 miles from Washington sits his former coach, Kyle Shanahan, who has taken over hapless San Francisco. Shanahan and new GM John Lynch have done a good initial job rebuilding parts of that broken franchise but they didn’t seek much of an offseason fix at quarterback.
The 49ers opted for patchwork deals with Brian Hoyer to start for what is essential backup money because that’s essentially what he is and Matt Barkley to back him up for less-than-backup money. They drafted a long-term project in C.J. Beathard in the third round just to give them a young kid. So why didn’t they do more?
Maybe because they see the fix Cousins has the Redskins in and are fixing to make him their longterm fix after he plays out the tag.
Are the Redskins really going to tag him a third time at a cost of nearly $35.5 million? Owner Dan Snyder has done dumber things but not many.
If not, and they put the transition tag on him after another season like last year’s, where he completed 67 percent of his throws, was third in passing yardage (4,917) and seventh in QB efficiency rating (97.2), the Niners might be willing to give up the draft picks required to give him a deal Washington can’t match.
Why could they do that? Because the Niners will be in a far better cap situation in 2018 than Washington. And maybe there’s something else at play here, too.
Kirk Cousins has been ably represented by Priority Sports. His agents have done a great job of maximizing both his income and his leverage but there’s a potential other side to that. Who else does Priority Sports represent? Kyle Shanahan. Savor that for a moment and then understand Cousins is playing this about as well as he played quarterback last season. He’s set to become the highest paid player in pro football with every cent guaranteed. He’s also saying all the right things, telling former Redskins quarterback turned Washington broadcaster Joe Theismann he wants nothing more than to be a Redskin for life.
“Great organization, phenomenal history, passionate fan base, great city,” Cousins told Theismann. “There’s just so many positives to discuss. I love my teammates, I love playing with these guys. So I don’t need to look elsewhere.”
No, he doesn’t because he’s getting rich in Washington and a year from now, one place or another, he’s going get richer. If the worst thing happens and he suffers some dreadful injury that ends his career this season what is he left with?
Well, $43.9 million is a good place to start. It’s not Pablo Sandoval money but it ain’t a bad payoff for betting on yourself.