Season is basically over...so now what?

[bleedspeed]

The only way we upgrade from Cousins is via drafting someone. I would be curious about how many free agents have been better than Cousins. Drew Brees might be the best free-agent QB signing of all--time, but he was coming off shoulder surgery too. Cousins might be in top 10 FA QB signings of all time. (talking about QB's that were not near retirement. aka Farve, Manning, Brady, etc)

[Monster]

The only way we upgrade from Cousins is via drafting someone. I would be curious about how many free agents have been better than Cousins. Drew Brees might be the best free-agent QB signing of all--time, but he was coming off shoulder surgery too. Cousins might be in top 10 FA QB signings of all time. (talking about QB's that were not near retirement. aka Farve, Manning, Brady, etc)

That would be an interesting list to compile. Gannon would likely be a top 10 FA signing. Kurt Warner would be there... Cousins might not make that top 10.

[bleedspeed]

The only way we upgrade from Cousins is via drafting someone. I would be curious about how many free agents have been better than Cousins. Drew Brees might be the best free-agent QB signing of all--time, but he was coming off shoulder surgery too. Cousins might be in top 10 FA QB signings of all time. (talking about QB's that were not near retirement. aka Farve, Manning, Brady, etc)

That would be an interesting list to compile. Gannon would likely be a top 10 FA signing. Kurt Warner would be there... Cousins might not make that top 10.

His stats would crush both Gannon and Warner. Kirk's QBR rating even during his worst year here is better than anything Kurt or Rich did on better teams.

Gannon did have a really good 4 year run with Oakland. I forgot about how good he was. Not bad for a guy that started out in college as a punter and was drafted into the NFL as a RB.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

My point and the problem with Cousins is the diminishing returns he has as your B+ QB making A money. Keep in mind he's at 21 million this year because they kicked all his money back to next year and the year after and we are looking at either missing the playoffs or sneaking in for the price of massive cap issues the next 2 years. He's 31 million next year while being un-cuttable because of a 41 million dollar dead cap and he's 45 million the following year with still 10 million dead cap which is a top 10 salary just gone from the team. So while he needs his supporting cast to remain at an elite level to win his cap hit prevents his teams from actually paying for that supporting cast as high level rookies need to be paid to stay. That's why you see a regression in wins over time. He stays the same and the team gets worse through attrition.

Also, when you make almost twice as much as the next highest paid player on the team you need to be THE SOLUTION and not just "not the problem". The biggest investment from the team is in him so he needs to be the answer. He's the kind of QB that you need to bring in at the perfect time or else you miss your window and the last 2 years were the window. Now we will start to see the attrition around him which already began this year with half the defense being cut. The only way to keep up is to draft perfectly and Spielman has had some good picks and some bad which isn't gonna get it done at the end of the day. That's the real cost of a B+ QB at an A salary.

[bleedspeed]

Good QB's on rookie deals are the best thing a team can have in the NFL. It will be interesting how the Dolphins and Tau do. They rebuilt ahead of him coming and now they might time it perfectly.

I am surprised more teams don't tank and shed money. If you do that it carries forward for a period. Is it correct if you are under 50M this year you still get that 50M next year and so on? Kind of what the Borwns did.

[Monster]

The only way we upgrade from Cousins is via drafting someone. I would be curious about how many free agents have been better than Cousins. Drew Brees might be the best free-agent QB signing of all--time, but he was coming off shoulder surgery too. Cousins might be in top 10 FA QB signings of all time. (talking about QB's that were not near retirement. aka Farve, Manning, Brady, etc)

That would be an interesting list to compile. Gannon would likely be a top 10 FA signing. Kurt Warner would be there... Cousins might not make that top 10.

His stats would crush both Gannon and Warner. Kirk's QBR rating even during his worst year here is better than anything Kurt or Rich did on better teams.

Gannon did have a really good 4 year run with Oakland. I forgot about how good he was. Not bad for a guy that started out in college as a punter and was drafted into the NFL as a RB.

IMO both guys were better players than Cousins is up to this point. Rich Gannon won an MVP and Warner won 2.

[Monster]

My point and the problem with Cousins is the diminishing returns he has as your B+ QB making A money. Keep in mind he's at 21 million this year because they kicked all his money back to next year and the year after and we are looking at either missing the playoffs or sneaking in for the price of massive cap issues the next 2 years. He's 31 million next year while being un-cuttable because of a 41 million dollar dead cap and he's 45 million the following year with still 10 million dead cap which is a top 10 salary just gone from the team. So while he needs his supporting cast to remain at an elite level to win his cap hit prevents his teams from actually paying for that supporting cast as high level rookies need to be paid to stay. That's why you see a regression in wins over time. He stays the same and the team gets worse through attrition.

Also, when you make almost twice as much as the next highest paid player on the team you need to be THE SOLUTION and not just "not the problem". The biggest investment from the team is in him so he needs to be the answer. He's the kind of QB that you need to bring in at the perfect time or else you miss your window and the last 2 years were the window. Now we will start to see the attrition around him which already began this year with half the defense being cut. The only way to keep up is to draft perfectly and Spielman has had some good picks and some bad which isn't gonna get it done at the end of the day. That's the real cost of a B+ QB at an A salary.

Kahns what do you think it's a realistic number Cousins should restructure to that would allow the team to build around him?

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

My point and the problem with Cousins is the diminishing returns he has as your B+ QB making A money. Keep in mind he's at 21 million this year because they kicked all his money back to next year and the year after and we are looking at either missing the playoffs or sneaking in for the price of massive cap issues the next 2 years. He's 31 million next year while being un-cuttable because of a 41 million dollar dead cap and he's 45 million the following year with still 10 million dead cap which is a top 10 salary just gone from the team. So while he needs his supporting cast to remain at an elite level to win his cap hit prevents his teams from actually paying for that supporting cast as high level rookies need to be paid to stay. That's why you see a regression in wins over time. He stays the same and the team gets worse through attrition.

Also, when you make almost twice as much as the next highest paid player on the team you need to be THE SOLUTION and not just "not the problem". The biggest investment from the team is in him so he needs to be the answer. He's the kind of QB that you need to bring in at the perfect time or else you miss your window and the last 2 years were the window. Now we will start to see the attrition around him which already began this year with half the defense being cut. The only way to keep up is to draft perfectly and Spielman has had some good picks and some bad which isn't gonna get it done at the end of the day. That's the real cost of a B+ QB at an A salary.

Kahns what do you think it's a realistic number Cousins should restructure to that would allow the team to build around him?

I mean the number he needs to be at to compete in the latter years of his contract is not a realistic number for a QB of his caliber in 2020. That's why I don't think you can compete with him as your QB unless you just hit big on a bunch of rookie contracts to supplement the team. If you combine him with our dead cap this year, which most of it was paying the piper for his original fully guaranteed deal, they account for 28% of our cap space for 1 player on the team. If you could cut out 25 million of their 56 million combined cap hit and use it on players actually getting snaps for us then I think we are much better off. That was enough money for multiple veteran pieces that could have helped on the D-Line, O-Line or in the secondary. If you want to win with him as your QB he can't be making more than 20 million and you have to have a healthy cap to go with that price to fill out the rest of the team.

It's the same thing we see with NBA teams. When you give max money to non-max players it makes it really difficult to contend and his original contract was max money to a non-max player. Rather than just eat the contract this year and start over they re-structured horribly to try to compete with a gutted roster. To put it into context the Packers are paying Rogers the same amount as Kirk and only had 7 million in dead money and they have the best team in the conference. That's what managing your money around a QB looks like and Rogers is significantly underpaid at that rate compared to his performance. That's how you build a real contender.

[Wolvesfan21]

7.8 YPA

100 QB RATING

Kirk Cousins over last 6 seasons.

7.3 YPA

101 QB RATING

Aaron Rodgers over last 6 seasons.

I'm not sure you can really make a case Rodgers is that much better. He may have less weapons to throw to arguably. So I included some Cousins data from his time in Washington too.

Ideally every position on the team the player outperforms his contract, especially at QB.

[khans2k5 [enjin:6608728]]

7.8 YPA

100 QB RATING

Kirk Cousins over last 6 seasons.

7.3 YPA

101 QB RATING

Aaron Rodgers over last 6 seasons.

I'm not sure you can really make a case Rodgers is that much better. He may have less weapons to throw to arguably. So I included some Cousins data from his time in Washington too.

Ideally every position on the team the player outperforms his contract, especially at QB.

I don't know what to say to someone that thinks Cousins is in the same league as Aaron Rogers because of YPA and QB rating. QB rating is the PER of the NFL. Cousins has thrown double digit picks in 5 of the last 6 seasons. Rodgers hasn't thrown double digit picks in over a decade. Cousins has almost twice as many fumbles in the last 6 years compared to Rodgers (57-30). It's just not close. GB would have had the best offense in the NFL and might have pushed it to historical numbers if he had Thielen, Diggs and Cook to work with last year and Thielen, Jefferson and Cook to work with this year.