NFL: The Redskins and cousins: This is new territory for all of us!

Ever since it became officially clear that Jimmy Garoppolo remains in San Francisco, he is definitely the biggest fish on the free agency market: Kirk Cousins will leave Washington Redskins, that’s clear to everyone. But how did this happen? And where are cousins moving to now? SPOX opens this year’s Free-Agency-Coverage with the story of the Free Agent, which does not really exist in the NFL.

If you could have thought up the end of the Kirk cousin era in Washington with a cynically soaked pen, it couldn’t have been more accurate:”It was a surprise,”Cousins admitted openly after digesting the Redskin trade for Alex Smith. One could also say that it was the right way to make cousins understand that their future is not in the capital.

He had just trained at his hotel in Minnesota on the edge of the Super Bowl when he looked at his mobile phone and saw the news: Washington had just signed a new starting quarterback. Head coach Jay Gruden was not supposed to contact him until the next day; Cousins’ handling of the situation was excellent. Instead of criticizing or following suit, he explained:”Every player is looking forward to the Free Agency. Looks like I’ll be back on the 14th. March a free agent. This was supposed to be an exciting process.”

No doubt, it should. And that’s mildly put it mildly, because Cousins is breaking new ground: a 29-year-old franchise quarterback without injury and without any missteps off the field doesn’t actually make it onto the market in the NFL. This position is so important that teams here are putting all the levers in place to keep and manage an above-average quarterback – usually anyway. 49ers and Jimmy Garoppolo are the latest example of this.

Washington, on the other hand, has successively driven this situation up against the wall and, although it did get a good interim solution with Smith, has not only paid a lot of money for two years of cousins and Smith and his new deal, but has also given up a draft pick and a talented cornerback in Kendall Fuller, who was still playing under his rookie contract. And the Redskins have prepared the stage for a free agency spectacle of the special, possibly trend-setting kind.

If you want to go back to the point where the tablecloth was cut between cousins and the team from the capital city – the summer of last year would be a good choice. Hardly anyone criticized Washington when he received the Franchise Day before the 2016 season: who was once used as a backup for Robert Griffin III. In the same draft, his cousins had just completed his first full season as a starter and they were not really sure about his assessment.

Even if tensions were already evident at that time due to the low supply, Washington’s decision was basically understandable: The Franchise Day – the team option to bind a player for one season – can make sense for such situations. As long as you then agree on a contract, because the prescribed payroll quickly escalates with further days.

A very good season under Sean McVay in a great offense finally brought Cousins into the ranks of the top 15 quarterbacks – and the drama took its course. The Redskins not only offered cousins a contract that was scarce due to the circumstances; they also went public with it in order to present themselves in a better light.

At the beginning of May,”Cousins were offered the highest fully guaranteed sum to sign in the history of the NFL (53 million dollars) and a total of 72 million dollars guaranteed for the injury. The deal would have made him at least the second best paid player of all time in terms of average annual salary,”Team President Bruce Allen said in a video message in mid-July. But cousins made it clear “that he’d rather play on a year-to-year basis.”

It was a surprising attack from nowhere, which finally catapulted the already frosty relationship into the ice age. And who also made the team look bad from a financial point of view: Cousins was already under his second franchise day in a row at the time, so he had guaranteed 23.9 million dollars for 2017. If Washington had given him a third day in 2018, almost 35 million dollars would have been due – the guarantees offered by Washington would not even have reached the sum of these two days.

In other words, cousins controlled the negotiations more or less completely at this point in time – another absolute exception in the NFL. And Washington did nothing to give him a reason to think about their offer.

Not surprisingly, no agreement was reached and Cousins also played last season under the franchise day. Washington had paid 43.8 million dollars to cousins for two seasons; a deal signed in 2016 would no longer have had to include guarantees to get cousins to sign up.

“After the 2015 season, I was ready to sign a long-term contract. At that time the team needed more time, we understood that. After the 2016 season, Sean McVay went to Los Angeles. I had the feeling that I needed more time,”Cousins summed up the situation at ESPN himself and added:”At this point there was really no chance of a deal”.

And the “problem” for the Redskins, if you like: Cousins played very well again in 2017. Even without McVay, also without Pierre Garcon and DeSean Jackson, also largely without Jordan Reed. In the deep-passing game he is still one of the best of his guild, and he is also a master of the play-action game. This season he also shone against the lightning and is one of the league’s more accurate registrars.

Contrary to the statements of their quarterback, the team leaders seemed convinced that they would not agree with their cousins – and hit via trade before the presumably best available alternative solution was sold out to Smith. Several teams were already in the race, which explains the high price. The Redskins didn’t want to give up Fuller from the beginning.

“I wanted to take my time and that put Washington in a difficult position. They didn’t want to wait, so they did the trade,”Cousins even defended his soon-to-be ex-team and was able to draw something positive from it:”I knew it would be a difficult decision. The fact that the decision was finally made for me has relieved me. Even though it is emotionally difficult to leave the city with which I now associate so many memories. But I understood.”

Cousins is not the next Aaron Rodgers and critics point out some bad appearances in important games. There was no doubt about it, but he’s still an above-average NFL quarterback and definitely doesn’t have to hide from a Derek Carr – to name a quarterback who received a premature contract renewal. You can use cousins to take the lead in the long run, that’s the point.

And many teams lick their fingers for the quarterback quality that Cousins brings with them: Denver, Arizona, Cleveland, Jacksonville, the Jets, Buffalo, maybe even Minnesota – many will bid for this unbelievably rare opportunity with the chance of a kind of stability guarantee on the most important position. Many teams crave a quarterback like cousins.

They make that clear.”I’ve talked to him about it before. He knows exactly how I feel about it,”said Denver’s star-pass rusher Von Miller at The Dan Patrick Show,”I told him what he would mean to us and what value he would have for many teams,” Cardinal’s Cornerback Patrick Peterson explained:”I think Kirk would definitely take us to a very high level. He would play here in warm weather on one of the best fields of the NFL. And he would have great talent around him.”

The 29-year-old’s contract, where he signs it, will set new standards. It could be the first quarterback to break the 30 million mark each year and set a new record in terms of guarantees. He could demand percentages of the annual salary cap to benefit from the strong growth here.

Ben Roethlisberger, Aaron Rodgers, Dak Prescott and Russell Wilson, among others, will be entering the last season of their current contracts in 2019, and they will be able to observe closely how the market reacts to an available quarterback franchise and what cousins can demand.

“I’m honored when a player of Von’s class talks about me like that. It’s always nice to be coveted,”Cousins recently told TMZ about the rumors of moving to Denver,”I’d like to gather more information, talk to him and learn more about Denver, just like the other teams out there.”

And his farewell from Washington, announced by the Smith-Trade?”I don’t take it personally,”cousins never tire of stressing.”It’s a business. I try never to get my hopes up too high. And I don’t expect too much from the people in this league – because you never know what could happen.”

The last sentence is in a way also the title of Cousins’ forthcoming free agency experience. It will be the most exciting one in a few years. And possibly also a trend-setting one for the future.