Bleeding Bills Blue

Drafting a guy comes with 5 years of control - and he can't sign elsewhere. Cousins is a bidding war - you're bidding money as well as your city and organization. Why are we a better destination than anywhere else?

No - but i don't want to anoint him savior, or have to rely upon him to be the unquestioned starter. He has done nothing to earn either of those accolades.

It's hard to say - hes the same age as stafford and had similar numbers last year with worse WRs. He performed better than Carr, Flacco, Ryan, and many of the others in his bracket. Stafford got 5 years 135 million - an open market would likely dictate he get more than that. He could definitely approach 30m per year. Just adds to our consistent flow of dead money. We're already at about 18 million dead cap for 2018. I get that the previous regime made some mistakes - but at some point its nice to just have the player play for the money that you paid him.

If they keep him and draft someone you're using 30+ million of cap space on a placeholder.

Bradfords an interesting case. He's made a ton of money already - worked under a bunch of coordinators... I think he's just looking for a spot where he's actually the guy.

Either way he has all the leverage. Playing under the tag - he'll have the biggest cap hit in the NFL and a fully guaranteed 30 something million. He's also a guaranteed UFA in 2019 as a 4th tag would be around 50 million in cap space.

His stats are better than flacco, luck, ryan, and carr, and fairly in line with stafford. He has justification to get a payday similar to staffords 5 for 135. Stafford took that extension from the team he played for - this implies he wants to stay there and they want him there. If you're trying to out-bid others for his services, expect to pony up similar numbers. Cleveland and Jax can put together massive deals if they want to, so you can't be THAT far off and expect him to consider it. We're talking about millions of dollars in guarantees.

If he becomes available - or even in his negotiations with Wash - they start at the 5 for 135 that stafford got. If he's not tagged, id say 30 mil per season average isn't out of the realm. If he is tagged, he likely plays under the tag. It'd be impossible to tag him a 4th time - and then he hits the unrestricted free agency he wants so he can choose his team and get a massive payday.

Plus if they tag him - the trade offers won't come in until most of the best free agents have already signed. So their cap savings basically only help them in 2019 anyway, as they'll hang a 33 million cap hit. 2018 is a crummy year for them because they werent able to work out an extension with him.

His guaranteed salary will be very high no matter what, and the average will be around 30 million.

It depends what you think he is. He'd need to be brady to take that roster anywhere. If you can tag and trade him - you can package picks to move up and get a newer - cheaper QB who you can build around. I'm not saying let him walk for nothing. I'm saying I wouldn't build around him with that roster.

Right - and they will probably hover around 7-9 again. They'll have no cap space and more holes than last year. At least if you trade cousins, you likely bottom out and get a shot at a top QB in 2019. The Redskins are sort of in that bradford/Rams situation - they have a pretty good QB, whos overpaid... and the rest of the team is crap and needs to be blown up.

The franchise tag costs them 33 million of their 52 in projected cap space.... they don't have any talent at WR, or at RB. And their defense sucks. When does Washington just look at it and say you're just spinning your wheels if you sign this guy?

Transition tag doesn't provide any compensation - and its 28 million vs 33 million. A bunch of teams have a TON of cap and could front load a deal that would literally be impossible for washington to match without gutting their already gutted roster.

Frazier coached with him before last season so who knows - Frazier was also a defensive backs coach for many years so its not like we don't have an experienced coach who can work with the defensive backs.

Both players got hurt when they arrived, it was more bad luck than anything else.

Always the chance that they just sign a cousins or something too. They're in a unique spot with that much cap room. You could literally eat like 75 million in year 1 signing bonus to keep base salaries low for the life of the deal. You'd risk a hold out or something, but its hard to argue for a holdout when you got a huge guarantee paid out up front.

All 3 of those receivers had speed questions. On the Zay scouting page it said this though and i giggled... "I thought along with Haason Reddick, he handled the process better than anybody in college football. He's got hands and toughness. ... People thought he couldn't run because most of his offense was underneath. I'll tell you right now, he ran away from people at the Senior Bowl. He went from a third- or fourth-round selection to a high second-round because he trusted the process." -- Mike Mayock

So you're saying they just pick their guy at 1?

Yeah - just throwing a bold idea out there. If they go non-QB at 1, then teams begin looking to trade up to 3 if theres a certain QB they want. Going to be a bizarre offseason and leadup to the draft.

No, of course they wont. But when the franchise as it stands has literally never had a starting QB, it might be worth it to invest in it. They're at least a year out from competing - you get a full year with both of them and trade the extra piece a year later to a team for a 1st and change. Yes - its not maximizing your assets. Just looking at it from the perspective of the parade of terrible players they've had since tim couch... and how its corresponded to being the worst team in the league for an absurdly long time.

Get one at 1 and at 4 - you can probably trade the one who doesn't win the job for a bunch later.

Sportrac has it at $5,591,668. 4.3 in prorated bonus money, and a restructure bonus that lowered his cap hit from last year. Yeah - all the bonus money is already paid so that gets pushed into this year. Roster bonuses/workout bonuses don't count - as they were not met. Guaranteed base salary is also paid out, but he didn't have any.

If he's a JAG, then the value has to be decent coming back. I believe his cap hit is the same whether we keep him or trade him (base salaries would be paid by the new team).

Why don't we see how free agency plays out...? It starts like 2 months before the draft.