One of the most compelling unanswered questions heading into the 2016 season involved the future of Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins. After initially failing to impress as the on-again, off-again replacement for Robert Griffin, Cousins cut out the interceptions and produced a magical run to lead Washington to the playoffs in 2015. The numbers were almost comically great: Over the final 10 games of 2015, Cousins threw 23 touchdowns against three picks and posted a 78.8 QBR, the second-best figure in football.
Washington general manager Scot McCloughan chose to franchise Cousins over the offseason in lieu of allowing him to hit unrestricted free agency or locking him up with a long-term extension. The goal, naturally, was to keep Cousins on the roster while waiting to see whether the guy who blew up in 2015 was the real deal. Eight weeks into the season, as I discussed with Mina Kimes and Sheil Kapadia in our live podcast this week in Seattle, I'm not really sure we know the answer.
The Magic 8 Ball appears to be coming up with "shake again" for Cousins, but let's see if we can look a little deeper into Cousins' run to figure out what Washington might do -- and should do -- this offseason.
While Cousins played relatively well in all facets of the game during the 2015 season, his incredible 10-game run was built upon two fronts, both of which were going to be difficult to maintain. One was an oddly microscopic interception rate: a passer who had thrown picks on 4.3 percent of his pass attempts before the now-famous "You Like That" game versus the Buccaneers threw just three interceptions over his final 315 pass attempts in 2015, a 1.0 percent clip.
Nobody sustains a 1.0 percent interception rate, not even your Tom Bradys and Alex Smiths of the world, so there was little reason to think Cousins would continue to post a rate in that ballpark. Cousins was always going to regress, but the question was whether it would be to the mean or to his former, borderline-unplayable self.
The answer, at least thus far, is that Cousins has basically been about an average quarterback in terms of avoiding interceptions. His interception rate is 2.2 percent, roughly that of a league-average passer (2.0 percent), and it's only above that league-average rate after throwing what amounted to an effective punt on third down against the Bengals in London last weekend. It has been only 321 pass attempts, so Cousins could still turn back into his old self, but we basically now have two full seasons of data to work with for Cousins.
Up to that Bucs game, he threw 27 interceptions in 635 attempts. Since the Tampa victory, he has been picked just 10 times in 636 passes. We have as much data suggesting Cousins will be able to avoid having interceptions plague his career as we do saying he'll be a mess.
In looking at Cousins' interceptions this season, it's still clear that defenses can fool him.
He has that Hail Mary pick, an interception that was tipped at the line against Pittsburgh, and a frantic throw under pressure that Malcolm Jenkins returned to the house.
His other four interceptions have all been on throws where a defender was able to undercut a receiver who looked open to Cousins for an easy pick.
Defenses still fool him with trap coverages from their cornerbacks and robber looks over the middle of the field, where defenders can either come off of their men or disguise their intentions before breaking on the football. Jamar Taylor's interception in the Browns game and C.J. Mosley's near-pick-six are the exact sorts of interceptions Cousins gets in the habit of throwing.
Cousins also has two interceptions in the red zone this year, which was his other point of emphasis in 2015. The former Michigan State star was a monster inside the 20 last year, throwing for 22 touchdowns without an interception while taking just one sack in 80 dropbacks. While he unquestionably got help from star tight end Jordan Reed, Cousins was at the focal point of an offense which was ninth in points per red zone trip.
I wrote before the season about how red zone performance is wildly inconsistent from year to year, and indeed, Washington has been awful in the red zone this year. Cousins obviously has more interceptions to his name in the red zone than the zero he posted last season, and Washington is averaging a league-low 3.97 points per red zone trip this season. Cousins himself posted a 96.7 QBR on throws inside the red zone last season, the second-best figure in the league; this year, his 63.8 QBR is good for only 16th in the league.
Given that Cousins was 10th in QBR outside the red zone in 2015 and is at the same spot again in 2016, the red zone decline explains why he has fallen from fourth in raw QBR a year ago to 13th this season. Cousins also falls one spot to 14th once you account for strength of schedule; he has the third-largest gap between his raw QBR and his opponent-adjusted QBR, with only Brian Hoyer and Ryan Tannehill facing easier schedules so far this season.
And yet, having said all that: There's nothing wrong with the 14th-best quarterback in football, or a passer in the range of league average. Cousins has had games where he has failed to impress -- he might have left three touchdowns on the field in Week 1 -- but the bottom has never fallen out completely, as he has posted adjusted QBR figures between 41.9 and 73.9 in each of his seven games this season. He has just one game with as many as two picks after posting four such games in the first six contests last year. Cousins hasn't hit the heights of the best parts of his 2015, but he also hasn't come close to sinking down to its lows, either.
You can win a lot of games with a league-average quarterback.
Alex Smith is 35-18 as one with the Chiefs. Joe Flacco is worse than league average, and he has gone 78-51 and won a Super Bowl with the Ravens. Ideally, you want your quarterback to be an undeniable superstar or a developing young passer on a rookie deal, but it's usually better to have a reasonable quarterback locked down than it is to take a shot in the dark at the game's most important position.
The reason I inserted "usually" into that previous sentence, as you might already suspect, involves Brock Osweiler. We know more about Cousins than we did about Osweiler when the latter signal-caller hit free agency after seven career starts, but the idea here is roughly the same: Team develops quarterback into what looks to be something around a league-average passer and then has to decide whether he's worth keeping around if the cost is a little more than league average.
The Broncos did their due diligence in evaluating Osweiler and decided, even if it meant leaving a viable Super Bowl contender with Trevor Siemian and Mark Sanchez at quarterback, that Osweiler wasn't worth what he was being offered on the free market. Osweiler then signed a four-year, $72 million deal that was really more like a two-year, $31 million contract with two team options tacked on the end. As it stands right now, Osweiler's deal is already underwater. The Texans owe him $19 million in guaranteed money in 2017 when they probably would prefer to cut him and start anew again at quarterback.
The simple argument I've seen from people in and around the league when it comes to franchise quarterbacks is that if you have to ask whether you have one under center, you don't. It's also true that teams simply don't let franchise quarterbacks leave; the last one to hit the market while playing at a high level was Drew Brees in San Diego, and that was a decade ago.
I think it was smart for McCloughan to franchise tag Cousins in 2015 given how little we knew on the outside about his improvement and how likely it was to stick. It's also true to say that if Washington had no doubts about Cousins' ability to play at a high level, they would have used the leverage of the franchise tag to lock Cousins up to a long-term deal. Again, teams don't let franchise quarterbacks leave. Cousins' cap hit of almost $20 million under last year's franchise tag is the seventh largest in football; an extension likely would have cost less money on the cap this year.
Instead, if the Cousins status quo continues, McCloughan will have to make an even tougher call. A second franchise tag for Cousins would cause his cap hit to rise to $23.9 million next season, which would make him the fourth-highest paid player in football behind Tony Romo, Flacco and Carson Palmer. At nearly $24 million, a league-average quarterback isn't delivering any surplus value. Washington won't want to pay Cousins that much on a short-term contract, and his representation will know as much.
At the same time, it's a sure thing that Cousins would get a massive deal in unrestricted free agency. The Texans gave Osweiler $31 million in guarantees, and while Cousins would be hitting the market at 29, he appears to be a significantly better quarterback with little injury history. If Osweiler got two guaranteed years, it's not crazy to think a team might guarantee Cousins' first two seasons at $18 million each and partially guarantee a third season at $9 million, putting a total of $45 million in guarantees on the table. In a draft with precious little in the way of quarterback prospects and no viable options in-house, teams like the Browns and Bears would have to seriously consider taking a run at Cousins and using their draft picks to try to grab help for their new starter.
One case would say that if the market gives Cousins that sort of contract, Washington should be willing to give him the same sort of deal. And indeed, Washington is in transition and should want to secure Cousins' future. This is a team that realistically could move on from DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon after the season and build its receiving corps around Reed, slot wideout Jamison Crowder and first-round pick Josh Doctson.
The flip side of that argument, again, is Osweiler.
Just because one other organization thinks a quarterback is worth a ton of money doesn't mean it is right. Washington has an internal value of what it thinks Cousins is worth, and while it might want to stretch the numbers a bit for continuity's sake, it can't blow its budget on a quarterback. It might instead look to invest a midround pick on a rookie or go after a veteran in free agency who will come much cheaper than Cousins.
Should McCloughan lock up Cousins? That's the $45 million question, and to be honest, I don't think anybody involved knows the answer yet. Cousins has declined in predictable ways, but he's also still good enough to at least garner a big deal in free agency. Washington was hoping to get 16 games to see whether it should be handing out a big contract to its franchise passer. With eight games in the books, Washington is down to eight games before it has to make a decision that could define the franchise for years to come.