Kirk Cousins is officially a free man after the Washington Redskins chose not to use the franchise tag on him, and it has become clear that some of his former teammates believe that is what the quarterback wanted all along.
While there have been some reports that claim the Redskins never made a respectable offer to Cousins, veteran defensive back DeAngelo Hall said on “SportsCenter” Tuesday that the players in the locker room were under a different impression.
“We kind of felt like the commitment wasn’t there from Kirk,” Hall said, as transcribed by Scott Allen of the Washington Post. “We obviously wanted Kirk. We franchised him because we wanted him there. … Having played 14 years, I understand, ‘Let’s go get the money,’ but at some point there has to be mutual interest from both parties to want to get better collectively as a team. Paying Kirk probably the $30 million he’s going to get, we couldn’t do that and get better as a football team.”
Cousins had expressed some frustration in the past about still having to prove himself to the Redskins after so many productive seasons, so there were certainly times when it seemed like the team was low-balling him. Hall alluded to that, but he also said there was talk of the long-term contract offers being fair.
“I think we took a little too much in realizing how good he was,” he said. “Then when it was time to really pay him, we kind of said, ‘Hey, we want to see a little bit more.’ And we did that, and then his numbers kind of went up. Then we said, ‘Well, we still want to keep [our long-term offer] in this ballpark.’ And he wanted a little more, so we said, ‘All right, we’ll franchise you again.’ Finally, we just started getting a feeling as though, oh, maybe he really doesn’t want to be here. He wanted to kind of pick his own destination, I felt like.
“I felt like some of the offers that we heard about — just being players in the locker room, you kind of hear whispers. Some of the offers we felt like we heard, we were like, ‘Man, that’s a good deal. Why wouldn’t Kirk take it?’ So, we kind of did a lot of talking among ourselves, and it was just a feel. He never said anything. He never walked around like, ‘Man, why am I here?’ It was never anything like that. Kirk, from the moment he got in that locker room, he was nothing but a professional. He went about his business.”
Hall is not the first former teammate of Cousins to indicate there were questions about whether or not Cousins truly wanted to be in Washington. Jay Gruden also recently indicated Cousins no longer wanted to be with the Redskins, so there is likely some truth behind that.
