There may have been a few production issues that hurt the background music, but as Burgundy Blog pointed out this morning, you can still hear the ice cubes clinking in the glasses. That, my friends, is the sound of podcasting in progress.
Last night, we put the first half of the show on Facebook Live and spent the bulk of the entire show moving back and forth between Kirk Cousins and Bruce Allen. I think it is fair to say that we are generally down on Bruce, and high on Kirk.
When Kirk took to the airwaves yesterday, he said every single thing you would hope to hear. If there is any sense of normalcy this season, it will be because Kirk Cousins made that possible. That said, I want to make sure (and I mentioned this on the show) I acknowledge that there are vocal fans out there who don’t have a huge problem with not paying Kirk Cousins a mega-pile of money. I want to separate the argument if I could into one that is more centered on the behavior of our front office and less on the “go or no-go” decision on Kirk Cousins. If you still don’t think Kirk is worth a huge contract, that is fair—even though I respectfully disagree with that stance. My point is that Bruce’s offer to Kirk—the one Bruce told us he made—was not in line with what he, his agent and the majority of the rest of us think he will be getting. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that Kirk and his agent would decline to negotiate on those terms. Therefore, it technically isn’t true that the Redskins really made a compelling offer to get the long-term deal. Bruce was successful in spinning it as the Redskins making an unprecedented offer, but to me, “The Statement” was proof that the Redskins weren’t that interested in getting a deal done this offseason.
And that is fine...it would have been fine. Everyone was fine...until the team seemed to want to turn the fans against the player. That doesn’t sit well with me, and the more I think about it, the more it strikes me as a bizarre move to have made.
We will get past this...hopefully in a year. In the meantime, I simply have to believe that the chance exists for Kirk to be here long-term. I have to believe that because if I didn’t, this season would be somewhat depressing to watch. Given I believe the team will be both solid and competitive, it would suck to think we were speeding into a brick wall.
Next week, we will be doing some beer tasting, and we will be joined by a guest to help us start piecing this whole thing together heading into training camp. As always, thanks for listening!