The FINAL Kirk Cousins Saga thread. 5.0

[FrenchSkin]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Once they committed publicly to trading for Alex Smith at a rate(17M + guaranteed money) that would put us over the cap with KC FT any lawyer would be able to say the skins had no intent at the time they imposed the FT to pay him that amount on opening day. What KC says or does or has done has zero relevance to the Skins legal obligation under the CBA

Yep, I don't get what's so hard to understand:

when a team applies the franchise tender, the team must intend to employ the player at the amount of the franchise tender for the upcoming season. With Washington already planning to trade for, and to extend the contract of, Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith, there’s no way that Washington intends to employ Cousins at $34.47 million for 2018.

This portion of the labor deal provides Cousins with a silver bullet to block either the franchise tag or the transition tag, which would require Washington to have a good-faith intent to employ Cousins at $28.7 million. The fact that the window for tagging players closes a week before the start of free agency means that Cousins will have seven days to secure a ruling before the market opens. Given the widespread reports of Washington’s plans to acquire and extend Alex Smith, it shouldn’t take seven minutes for an arbitrator to issue a ruling.

CBA gives Kirk Cousins an immediate path to checkmate, if Washington tags him again – ProFootballTalk