From the outside looking in, it has appeared that for quite some time Kirk Cousins has done what he can to stay with the Washington Redskins.
But it sounds like his teammates don’t necessarily think that’s the case.
Cousins has received the franchise tag each of the past two seasons, but he’s set to hit the open market once free agency begins, and likely will make quite the haul from a team not named the Redskins.
With the Cousins era all but officially over in the nation’s capital, Washington defensive back DeAngelo Hall indicated that while the consensus amongst the team was that they wanted Cousins to be there, they felt the feeling was not mutual.
“We kind of felt like the commitment wasn’t there from Kirk,” Hall said Tuesday on ESPN. “We obviously wanted Kirk, we franchised him because we wanted him there. It was up to ownership and the front office to kind of work those numbers out. They couldn’t get the numbers worked out, so he signed franchise tags those two football seasons. But everybody in that locker was behind Kirk, we wanted him there, but we wanted to feel like he wanted to be there as well.
“Having playing 14 years I understand (the desire to) go get the money. But at some point it has to be mutual interest from both parties to want to get better collectively as a team, and paying Kirk probably the $30 million he’s gonna get we couldn’t do and get better as a football team.”
Interesting.
To be fair, Cousins is the most highly sought-after quarterback on the free agent market, so you can’t blame him for wanting to get paid what the market dictates he is worth. And if the Redskins aren’t willing to open up their checkbook to accommodate that — which it’s quite clear they aren’t — that’s on them.
