Ian Rapoport of NFL Media confirms that the Jets are willing to pay Kirk Cousins a lot of money to be their quarterback, possibly more than any other team.
However, other teams are expected to be in the mix for him including the Broncos, Cardinals and the Vikings if they don’t use their franchise tag on Cousins.
As for the possibility of the Redskins franchising Cousins and then trying to flip him in a trade, Rapoport explains that there are a number of reasons why this just isn’t practical.
The first of which is the fact that Cousins would eat up $34 million of cap room, they have a trade agreement in place with the Chiefs for Alex Smith, it would tie up their free agent plans until they were able to trade him, and Cousins will not negotiate a long-term deal with any team interested in trading for him after being franchised.
- Earlier in the day, Rich Cimini reported that the “badly” want to sign Cousins and sources have told him that New York is “willing to pay whatever it takes.”
- Over the weekend, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reported that there’s talk in league circles that the Jets could be willing to offer Cousins a fully guaranteed contract and the other suitors may have no choice but to follow suit.
Cousins, 29, is a former fourth-round pick of the Redskins back in 2012. He played out the final year of his four-year, $2,572,688 rookie contract that included a $472,688 signing bonus when Washington elected to use the franchise tag on Cousins that paid him $19.953 million fully guaranteed for the 2016 season.
The Redskins franchised him for the second year in a row this last year and he made $23.94 million fully guaranteed for the 2017 season.
In 2017, Cousins has appeared in all 16 games and thrown for 4,093 yards while completing 64.3percent of his passes to go along with 27 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. He’s also rushed for 179 yards and four touchdowns. Pro Football Focus has him rated as the No. 20 quarterback out of 40 qualifying players.
We have him featured in our Top 100 – 2018 NFL Free Agents list.
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