2018 NFL off-season thread: Mr. Alex Smith goes to Washington

What did Minnesota see in 2017 out of Case Keenum (and Kirk Cousins) to decide they need to break the bank for Cousins (which means losing players like a Stephon Diggs, etc down the road)?

I CANNOT SEE IT

 

I think you play for now if you're Minnesota and go for it with Cousins if you can. Leave tomorrow for tomorrow. You're the Vikings. Go try to win a Super Bowl.

 

Good idea. They didn't make the playoffs with Keenum, and Cousins is a perpetual MVP candidate.... No wait - the Vikings got to the NFC championship game behind Keenum, losing only on the road to the team who then defeated Tom Brady and the Patriots.

I could see going for broke next year if you could get Drew Brees. Or Aaron Rodgers. But I just don't see THAT MUCH difference between Keenum and Cousins.

 

Guess it's how you value those two guys. Read some of the advanced statistics and analysis on Keenum and he was remarkably lucky on a number of passes (he throws an incredibly high rate of interceptable passes and always has) and was really helped by an underrated supporting cast. Put Cousins in that offense with the support of that defense and I think he becomes an MVP caliber quarterback.

 

From what I've seen, Cousins is the human definition of "interceptable passes."

 

The coaches in Minnesota don't believe in Keenum, he was a game manager. I'm not sure Cousins is much better but they obviously don't think that Keenum can win them a game when needed.

 

Yeah, but only when he threw the ball more than 5 yards down the field.

 

For the money, I agree. I don’t think the Vikings want to pay Cousins $30M/year.

 

I fought that battle for a second and got swamped by how awesome he was and how shitty the rest of the Redskins were.

Again, the 'Skins aren't afraid of throwing out bad contracts and never wanted to give this guy one. If they are willing to throw 90-100M at Alex Smith, I am really curious why they were never willing to be sold on Cousins.

 

Cousins is a good QB. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get better. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he never lives up to his perfectly timed contract a la Joe Flacco.

 

Supposedly, it has a lot to do with office politics dating back to the Mike Shanahan era.
Condensing it down, RGIII was Dan Snyder's guy and Cousins was Shanahan's guy (remember that they were picked in the same draft, Cousins as a fourth-rounder and RGIII as a first-rounder they gave up a ton of assets to trade up and get).
When the Shanahan era unraveled, in part because he ran a wounded RGIII into the ground, Snyder's ire was eventually directed toward Cousins. The owner didn't believe in the QB and refused to give him big money even after Cousins played well. So they hit an awkward spot where they didn't want to invest in Cousins as a long-term QB but also did not have a viable alternative at quarterback.
I think they made one half-hearted offer that wasn't real close to market value, at which point Cousins went for the smart money grab and accepted the franchise tag. He got a hefty raise and showed he could play. Last year, same thing. Now it's Year 3 of this soap opera and the marriage is irrevocably broken.

tl;dr version: Dan Snyder is a fucking idiot.

 

Orlando Brown Jr., an All-America OL at Oklahoma, is ... not having a good day at the combine: