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Okay, now we have a lot more clarity about Kirk Cousins future.
While we don’t know which team he’ll play for in 2018 and beyond, we do know it won’t be the Washington Redskins, who traded for Alex Smith yesterday.
As Yahoo’s Charles Robinson put it, “The Redskins officially fired the starter’s pistol on Cousins’ race into free agency.”
So true.
And the Jets are clearly going to explore if signing Cousins is doable, but at what cost?
“He’s a good player,” former Redskins GM Scot McCloughan told Sports Radio 104.3 The Fan in Denver. “Is he special? I don’t see special.”
Cousins is likely going to demand a deal between $25-30 million-a-year. If you agree with McCloughan, who is considered a top-notch talent evaluator (he is out of the league due to personal issues), can you give a QB who isn’t “special” that kind of money, because it can cripple your ability to do much else with your roster.
“You’re investing so much money in one position, you’re going to lose some good players, some good young players, and that, from a GM standpoint, that’s how you have to look at it,” McCloughan said. “It’s a huge investment, and it’s going to affect the team.”
To me, if you are going to pay a quarterback in that $25 million area, he needs to be the kind of guy who can put team on his back, and lead them to wins, even with roster weaknesses. Peyton Manning did that a lot in his prime, obviously Tom Brady does it all the time, as have Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees.
Can Cousins do that? Not sure about that.
“You just need to have some talent around him because you don’t want him to be throwing the ball 35 to 40 times to win the game,” McCloughan said. “You want to have a running game, have a good defense, good [special] teams, and then let him do what he does.”
That description doesn’t put him in the “put a team on his back” category.
And I think the Jets will have to overpay to get Cousins. What I mean by overpay, is I can see him going to Denver for $25 million-a-year, but the Jets are going to go into the upper 20’s to get him.
Also, the Jets need to be careful about “buying love.” What I mean by that is Cousins perhaps wants to go somewhere else, but the Jets offer is so outrageous, he can’t turn it down.
The long-time radio DJ Don Imus once said, “When you make a career decision based mainly on money, it almost never works out.”
What he means is your heart isn’t into it, but you go for the money.
Jets need to make sure Cousins heart is into playing for them.
The media zoo around here is also something to consider.
“It’s a tough market, but if I make it about the media, I’ve got bigger problems,” Cousins said of New York on WFAN. “I like to think I have some experience dealing with a big media market.”
I have to be honest, I’ve said to other media people, “If I had a choice between this craziness, or a market with two beat writers, I’d pick the Jags or Indy or Carolina, places with very small, low-key media situation.”
And the Jets media scene is a huge challenge, more so than the Giants. And now in the click-bait era, it’s never been tougher.
I know it sounds crazy to some people that media markets would be a factor, but I’m telling you, a lot of players don’t like the craziness around here. It’s annoying.
Cousins could go to Denver, get a nice deal, and deal with a much more low-key media scene.
So the question to ponder moving forward – are the Jets better off breaking the bank on Cousins, or re-signing Josh McCown for a year, draft a QB at six who would sit and learn from McCown in 2018, and take over in 2019.
I’d go with the latter.
January 31, 2018
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