Kirk Cousins - Should He Stay or Should He Go?

[Dr LBC]

5 minutes ago, Superman(DH23) said:

The poison pill is no longer allowed under nfl rules, bc of the steve hutchinson/nate burleson situation

Well, then I'd expect this situation with Cousins to likely result in that being revisited in the next CBA.  The NFLPA does a lot of things bass-ackwards, but they could have legitimate precedent to take this particular matter (a player being effectively held hostage despite not wanting to be someplace long-term) to arbitration at minimum and expect a favorable decision.  Mostly because the franchise tag was a progression in the process that went from there being no free agency to teams trying to have some ability to retain players they'd put draft capital, time, and money into to now (a team) abusing that privilege.

That said, poison pills were restricted, not banned entirely, in 2011.  It's a heavy restriction, but trust me there are still ways (particularly with how public the structures of contracts are - and that they can be obtained directly through the NFLPA) to structure a contract to leverage a player on a transition tag away from the team that tagged him.

[Apparition]

Poison pill contracts aren't even legal anymore, are they?

[Sugashane]

6 minutes ago, Starless said:

Poison pill contracts aren't even legal anymore, are they?

 

It doesn't have to be a true poison pill, someone flush with cap offers an exorbitant one year deal and either WAS matches and he walks free in 2019, or they don't match and Kirk gets out of WAS now like he wants. Either he signs long-term or picks his team in 2019.

 

If he really wants to go somewhere, he can negotiate with other teams after the tag, the can work out a potential restructure or extension after he gets to them and away from WAS.

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

13 minutes ago, The LBC said:

it also means that any team trying to sign him away could poison pill the hell out of the contract to put the Redskins in serious cap purgatory if they did exercise Right of First Refusal.  Don't forget that Steve Hutchinson was transition tagged by the Seahawks and still ended up on Vikings.

Poison Pill implies you aren’t willing to accept the contract. Any offer a team proposes and is accepted by Cousins can be matched. If it isn’t the other team has to honor the contract. 

[Dr LBC]

2 minutes ago, Starless said:

Poison pill contracts aren't even legal anymore, are they?

The specific language in the ratified bit was:

"No Offer Sheet may contain a Principal Term that would create rights or obligations for the Old Club that differ in any way (including but not limited to the amount of compensation that would be paid, the circumstances in which compensation would be guaranteed, or the circumstances in which other contractual rights would or would not vest) from the rights or obligations that such Principal Term would create for the Club extending the Offer Sheet (i.e., no 'poison pills')."

Contracts can still be structured in terms of bonuses, guaranteed monies, the timings of such, etc. in such a way that it can adversely affect the tagging team in a major way.    Just working purely from the hip here, Washington has 49 players under contract in 2018 (with $53m in cap space), only 29 in 2019 (with just under $69m in cap space and Brandon Scherff scheduled to hit free agency).

It wouldn't be a "poison pill" in the classic sense of the word, but it could be something similar more akin to a ticking time bomb set to do some serious damage to their near-future cap and cost them the ability to re-sign (or even tag) a key cog without making some major cuts.

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

Anyone wanna give a realistic way Cousins gets out of Washington? He isn’t signing a one year deal, end of story. He has been looking for a long term contract for three years now, he isn’t going to accept a one year contract when he could sign somewhere long term. 

If he really hates DC he would say it publicly and make the process as painful as possible for the club so the fans would reject him. The only things we have heard publicly from him is that he is happy there. 

So the question comes, what price does DC not match on a long term deal? I don’t think any team offers him a contract that they don’t also sign. He will be the highest paid player in football, I guarantee it, the question is how much he gets paid. Maybe a team goes absolutely nuts and offers him something so large Washington can’t match, but that likely would ruin that teams cap and be a complete overpay. 

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

8 minutes ago, The LBC said:

The specific language in the ratified bit was:

"No Offer Sheet may contain a Principal Term that would create rights or obligations for the Old Club that differ in any way (including but not limited to the amount of compensation that would be paid, the circumstances in which compensation would be guaranteed, or the circumstances in which other contractual rights would or would not vest) from the rights or obligations that such Principal Term would create for the Club extending the Offer Sheet (i.e., no 'poison pills')."

Contracts can still be structured in terms of bonuses, guaranteed monies, the timings of such, etc. in such a way that it can adversely affect the tagging team in a major way.    Just working purely from the hip here, Washington has 49 players under contract in 2018 (with $53m in cap space), only 29 in 2019 (with just under $69m in cap space and Brandon Scherff scheduled to hit free agency).

It wouldn't be a "poison pill" in the classic sense of the word, but it could be something similar more akin to a ticking time bomb set to do some serious damage to their near-future cap and cost them the ability to re-sign (or even tag) a key cog without making some major cuts.

You realize that if a team offers him such an awful contract against the cap, and he signs it that the other team has to pay him under said contract right? And no, I don’t think renegotiating the contract after he is in a new team is plausible. Why would he ever do that when he has all the leverage?

[Dr LBC]

3 minutes ago, AZ_Eaglesfan said:

You realize that if a team offers him such an awful contract against the cap, and he signs it that the other team has to pay him under said contract right? And no, I don’t think renegotiating the contract after he is in a new team is plausible. Why would he ever do that when he has all the leverage?

I realize that.  But I also realize that other teams have different contracts/books structures and payout schedules than the Redskins do - and that the Redskins payout schedule and structures are public record.  I also realize that Cousins and his agent may be operating in their own interest as much as the interest of either of the teams and may insist upon set the "likely restructure/extension" point of the contract (nowadays every mega-deal has one, typically revolving around when certain guarantees have expired and new ones which would make it nigh impossible to trade/release the player and gives a ton of leverage moving forward to the player vs management in terms of giving cap easement) to a place that's far less convenient for the Redskins than it would be for the team trying to sign him away.

I wasn't the one that suggested trying to renegotiating him at a later date.  I'm more of the opinion that you're going to have three separate entities operating in their own self-interest in this, and that if Cousins and his agent are adamant about getting out of Washington, there are definitely things they can do in terms of structure, payout schedule, LTBE's, triggers, and what not that can be done to make the contract far less advantageous to the Skins than to another team they're negotiating with, particularly when the situation for the Skins is take the offer sheet signed as-is or not.

[Superman(DH23)]

29 minutes ago, The LBC said:

Well, then I'd expect this situation with Cousins to likely result in that being revisited in the next CBA.  The NFLPA does a lot of things bass-ackwards, but they could have legitimate precedent to take this particular matter (a player being effectively held hostage despite not wanting to be someplace long-term) to arbitration at minimum and expect a favorable decision.  Mostly because the franchise tag was a progression in the process that went from there being no free agency to teams trying to have some ability to retain players they'd put draft capital, time, and money into to now (a team) abusing that privilege.

Not really the whole reason we have the franchise escalators now is bc teams abused the franchise tag and walter jones and others were just constantly franchised and teams saved money doing it.  The current cba already reflects the recognition that teams abuse the tags and adjusted the payscale to help discourage it.  The reason that Cousins is set for $34M if the skins franchise him again is due to these exact points.  In fact Cousins has received more guaranteed money these 3 years than he would have likely received from the open market.  He nor the nflpa really has a leg to stand on in arbitration bc this very issue was already collectively bargained

[AZ_Eaglesfan]

8 minutes ago, The LBC said:

I realize that.  But I also realize that other teams have different contracts/books structures and payout schedules than the Redskins do - and that the Redskins payout schedule and structures are public record.  I also realize that Cousins and his agent may be operating in their own interest as much as the interest of either of the teams and may insist upon set the "likely restructure/extension" point of the contract (nowadays every mega-deal has one, typically revolving around when certain guarantees have expired and new ones which would make it nigh impossible to trade/release the player and gives a ton of leverage moving forward to the player vs management in terms of giving cap easement) to a place that's far less convenient for the Redskins than it would be for the team trying to sign him away.

I wasn't the one that suggested trying to renegotiating him at a later date.  I'm more of the opinion that you're going to have three separate entities operating in their own self-interest in this, and that if Cousins and his agent are adamant about getting out of Washington, there are definitely things they can do in terms of structure, payout schedule, LTBE's, triggers, and what not that can be done to make the contract far less advantageous to the Skins than to another team they're negotiating with, particularly when the situation for the Skins is take the offer sheet signed as-is or not.

If these details are enough to make the Skins refuse to sign Cousins they don’t want him that bad.

My opinion is that this isn’t nearly enough to deter the Skins from signing an offer sheet. We will see I guess. 

[Dr LBC]

1 minute ago, Superman(DH23) said:

Not really the whole reason we have the franchise escalators now is bc teams abused the franchise tag and walter jones and others were just constantly franchised and teams saved money doing it.  The current cba already reflects the recognition that teams abuse the tags and adjusted the payscale to help discourage it.  The reason that Cousins is set for $34M if the skins franchise him again is due to these exact points.  In fact Cousins has received more guaranteed money these 3 years than he would have likely received from the open market.  He nor the nflpa really has a leg to stand on in arbitration bc this very issue was already collectively bargained

You're kind of missing the point.  I'm not saying that Cousins would have a case for arbitration . Clearly, all that's occurred and is occurring with him presently falls under the current CBA.  However, that doesn't mean that the PA won't make it an issue or seek it as a concession in the bargaining for the next CBA.  The majority of the constituency of the Players Association doesn't really give a crap about the mega-contracts of the upper 5% of players except insomuch as it adversely affects the remaining salary pool from which the majority of players (those who have a 5-or-less season career expectancy and are seeking to maximize their earning potential) are able to earn their take-home.  These are the same players who generally could give a hoot about conceding to things like stricter banned substance and personal conduct rules because they're already aware they need to be doing things cleaner and tighter than most because the have less room for error without risking their jobs.

If said players (either via forcing the union to abide the majority opinion of its constituency or in a class action suit) were to petition for grievance and go to arbitration, they'd have a legitimate case that the device put into place to prevent teams from abusing the tag isn't actually doing it's job because abuse was still present and instead what was happening instead was the many were being adversely affected by the few.

[Sugashane]

23 minutes ago, AZ_Eaglesfan said:

You realize that if a team offers him such an awful contract against the cap, and he signs it that the other team has to pay him under said contract right? And no, I don’t think renegotiating the contract after he is in a new team is plausible. Why would he ever do that when he has all the leverage?

 

The renegotiation could simply be an extension that adds a number to the initial year.

 

Say he wanted a 5 year, $140mil contract

- Team negotiates with Kirk and they have a long term interest.

- Team offers a 1 year, $37 million deal, WAS chooses not to match.

- Team then offers an extension of 4 years/$103 million so he gets to be the highest played player and now has his 5 years and $140 million

 

He also may really want to be somewhere. Say his heart is set on DEN and Elway. He is already rich, and if he wants to win he might make a discount for the team and stil get his deal.

Do the 1 year $40 mil offer to snag him, then he renegotiates the deal to get his 5 year $140 mil deal but have it structured to be more friendly to Denver and their own current contracts. Even if it drops to $30 mil the first year he still gets the guaranteed amount they negotiated on, and THAT is the key number that players want. DEN has so few holes that they could realistically do this IF they thought Cousins would take them back to the Super Bowl.

 

That being said, I don't know if other teams are THAT interested in him to do it. I just think he will want out of WAS regardless of money.

[Superman(DH23)]

2 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

 

The renegotiation could simply be an extension that adds a number to the initial year.

 

Say he wanted a 5 year, $140mil contract

- Team negotiates with Kirk and they have a long term interest.

- Team offers a 1 year, $37 million deal, WAS chooses not to match.

- Team then offers an extension of 4 years/$103 million so he gets to be the highest played player and now has his 5 years and $140 million

 

He also may really want to be somewhere. Say his heart is set on DEN and Elway. He is already rich, and if he wants to win he might make a discount for the team and stil get his deal.

Do the 1 year $40 mil offer to snag him, then he renegotiates the deal to get his 5 year $140 mil deal but have it structured to be more friendly to Denver and their own current contracts. Even if it drops to $30 mil the first year he still gets the guaranteed amount they negotiated on, and THAT is the key number that players want. DEN has so few holes that they could realistically do this IF they thought Cousins would take them back to the Super Bowl.

 

 

 

 

Youre forgetting about the nflpa who would never approve a player going from an aav of $40M to one of less than $25.M

[Dr LBC]

4 minutes ago, Sugashane said:

 

The renegotiation could simply be an extension that adds a number to the initial year.

 

Say he wanted a 5 year, $140mil contract

- Team negotiates with Kirk and they have a long term interest.

- Team offers a 1 year, $37 million deal, WAS chooses not to match.

- Team then offers an extension of 4 years/$103 million so he gets to be the highest played player and now has his 5 years and $140 million

That scenario just isn't plausible though, as Washington has more cap space in 2018 than any QB-needy team except the Jets (and Browns, but I highly doubt that happens).  The only way you're going to put them off is structuring the contract in a way that salaries and bonuses/guarantees (with unfavorable payout schedules) in future years put them in an uncompromising bind.

The Skins were, ironically, helped out in this regard by the Niners trading for Jimmy G because a lot of teams saw the Niners being both the owner of a gargantuan amount of 2018 cap space (more than double what Washington has) AND an in to lure Cousins, and they shied away from clearing space figuring that they'd be up against a hand they flatly couldn't beat out.

 

[Forge]

6 minutes ago, The LBC said:

That scenario just isn't plausible though, as Washington has more cap space in 2018 than any QB-needy team except the Jets (and Browns, but I highly doubt that happens).  The only way you're going to put them off is structuring the contract in a way that salaries and bonuses/guarantees (with unfavorable payout schedules) in future years put them in an uncompromising bind.

The Skins were, ironically, helped out in this regard by the Niners trading for Jimmy G because a lot of teams saw the Niners being both the owner of a gargantuan amount of 2018 cap space (more than double what Washington has) AND an in to lure Cousins, and they shied away from clearing space figuring that they'd be up against a hand they flatly couldn't beat out.

 

The Vikings as well, though the two teams are comparable. Given all three of the Vikings quarterbacks are free agents, they have to at least be mentioned, though I would seriously doubt that they go there. Could be super interesting if they did though.