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The Kirk Cousins contract saga with the Washington Redskins continues, and it seems that there won’t be a long-term answer coming anytime soon. On Sunday, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Cousins and the Redskins are not expected to agree on a long-term contract extension by Monday’s 4 p.m. EDT deadline. The good news? Cousins is still reportedly “open” to doing a deal with the team after the season.
Kirk Cousins is not expected to sign a long-term deal by Monday’s deadline, but is open to doing deal with team after season, per source.
This means that Cousins will play under the franchise tag for the second year in a row and will make over $23.9 million during the 2017 season, according to Spotrac.
Assuming something surprising doesn’t happen, it’s going to mean that Cousins will enter the 2018 NFL offseason with the potential to still work out a long-term deal with the Redskins. On the flip side, there are two other options for the Redskins, as Schefter also broke down, but they aren’t exactly the most appealing to the team. The first is the transition tag and the second is the franchise tag for a third consecutive year, but both options would cost the Redskins a pretty penny for a one-year deal.
Now, the transition tag after this season for Kirk Cousins will be $28,732,320, the franchise tag $34,478,784.
He’s getting paid, somewhere.
So essentially, the Redskins will enter the 2018 season with two unappealing options, and of course, the one that both the team and Cousins would likely much prefer to see happen, which is a long-term contract.
As far as the transition tag goes, which would cost the Redskins $28,732,320, the reason why that’s less than the franchise tag is that it would give another NFL team the ability to sign Cousins to an offer sheet. If that happened, then the Redskins would have seven days to match. So essentially, the Redskins would be taking the risk of losing their quarterback if they chose not match another team’s offer (should they make one) in order to keep Cousins. The return for taking that risk is the potential to save over $5.7 million instead of franchising the quarterback, should it work out.
The possibility of the Redskins opting to franchise Cousins in 2018 does seem like a very realistic option, though, as CSNMidAtlantic.com reported that team president Bruce Allen certainly wouldn’t rule out doing so in order to keep Cousins.
At this point, it’s really up in the air in terms of how Cousins’ salary will look, but regardless, it’s going to result in the quarterback earning a whole lot money for the 2018 season.
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