Contract Talks Between Redskins & Kirk Cousins “Going Nowhere”, Likely To Play Under Franchise Tag

According to Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com, the assumption right now is that Redskins QB Kirk Cousins will play out the 2016 season under the franchise tag.

Breer says that the parties have spoken to one another about a possible extension in recent weeks, and while talks are reportedly “amicable,” they’re also “going nowhere.”

Cousins reportedly views the $44 million he would get from being tagged this year and again in 2017 as the baseline for negotiations. Breer says that Cousins is targeting this sum of money over the first two years of a possible extension.

However, Breer says that the team has essentially told him that they would prefer to see him put together another strong season before allocating that kind of money to him.

One problem with waiting to get a deal done with Cousins, according to Breer, is the possibility that the Colts lock up QB Andrew Luck to a record-setting contract and complete reset the market for future negotiations.

Previous reports have said that Cousins could be targeting as much as $19 million per year in his next contract, so we’ll have to see how things go in the coming months.

Cousins, 27, played out the final year of his four-year, $2,572,688 rookie contract that included a $472,688 signing bonus and was in position to be the best available quarterback in this year’s free agent market before he was tagged.

Washington elected to use the franchise tag on Cousins, which he wasted little in signing. Cousins now stands to make $19.953 million fully guaranteed for the 2016 season, but this won’t prevent them from negotiating a long-term deal that would reduce this figure and offer them some additional cap space.

In 2015, Cousins threw for 4,166 yards while completing 69.8 percent of his passes to go along with 29  touchdowns and 11 interceptions over the course of 16 games. Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 16 quarterback out of 37 qualifying players.

We’ll have more regarding a contract extension for Cousins as the news is available.