garyo1954
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Yeah I don't want to be perceived as painting Cousins as some sort of stumblebum. He's a quality NFL starter. Certainly he belongs in the top 20 to top 15 conversation. But if the Cowboys offered Dak to Minny for Cousins straight up how many nanoseconds would elapse before they said yes? I put the over/under at 5. And if we are comparing his years after he started to figure things out to Dak's entire career aren't we being a tad unfair? Cousins stunk up the joint for the most part in Washington until 2015. His numbers were god-awful especially considering he was playing in Shanahan's and then Gruden's WCO. An offense known to inflate the QB's numbers. I can't just act like those years never happened. Good on him for finally figuring things out to some extent in 2015. But save for Romo going down that's probably a losing season out of the playoffs for him too. Remember his only win against the Cowboys as a Commander came that year .. opposite Kellen Moore. Even after he started playing at a higher level he still went 0-4 against Dak and the Cowboys and was 0-2 against Romo. I'm sure that didn't endear him to the Skins' brass or the fans either for that matter.
I gotcha. Not a problem with me how anyone paints him. But I'm not sure how a fair comparison can be made.
On one hand, had RGIII not gotten hurt, Cousins may have spent his whole career as a benchwarmer, somewhat like Romo, Moore, and Dak.
A season per season comparison or a block of seasons for each player like they used to do in the old days, "the in his best years" comparison might be possible.
Still, from 2012 to 2014 he was a backup to RGIII so (I agree) he did what backups like Brandon Weeden, Cooper Rush, or Ben DiNucci do.
And by all rights the argument could be made that Jay Gruden should have been allowed to draft his own QB.
So you make some valid points. I still think though, if you have a player you don't want, or a disgruntled player who doesn't want to be there, you get rid of him before he becomes a locker room dysfunction.
Washington didn't hurt anybody but themselves when they offered him $19.5m and he knew he would get $19.9m on the tag.
They compounded their problem coming back with a contract for 2017 around $23.9m when he knew he would $24.5m on the second tag.
He made $44m in those two years betting on himself when signing a contract would have paid $43.4m.
A third tag would have brought him a cool $34m. We can play this game all day long and he'll always come out better playing year to year on a tag.
I suppose there are a number of factors that lead to his decisions, but it didn't affect his play on the field.
And a fair comparison might not be possible at all since there will always be the "he had a better team," "he had more experience," "better coaching," or "better system," or whatever reason could be offered for the disparity.
Frankly, I wouldn't choose Cousins over Dak, but that's just my opinion.