Kirk Cousins: Conflicting Reports About Cleveland Browns Interest In Quarterback
Kirk Cousins is currently signed to the franchise tag, but that has not stopped teams from talking to the Washington Redskins about him. The Cleveland Browns may or may not want to acquire the quarterback.
The Washington Redskins appear to be set on having Kirk Cousins be their starting quarterback. However, they did not want to sign him to a lucrative, long term extension in the neighborhood of what he is worth. While the Redskins want to ink Cousins to a $20 million per year deal, Cousins is seeking a deal near the $24 million range. That is the upper end of the quarterback market. The negotiations have caused strain on both sides in the relationship, and some expect that Cousins may want to just move on from the team.
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That said, the Redskins have maintained that they will not budge unless they get a package like what they gave up to get Robert Griffin III. Still, their is at least one team out there that is known to be interested in Cousins – the San Francisco 49ers, whose head coach Kyle Shanahan used to be the offensive coordinator for the Redskins. However, on Tuesday afternoon, there were conflicting reports about the potential interest of another team.
According to Mike Florio of NBC’s Pro Football Talk, league sources have identified Cousins as a potential target of the Browns. Florio said this in a piece about Cousins:
"Per a league source, there’s a growing belief in some circles that the Browns will try to acquire Cousins via trade. Another source said that, when Cousins chose to sign his franchise tender last week, the one concern he had is that, after the tender is signed, he can be traded. He specifically was concerned about being traded to Cleveland."
That would make a lot of sense. For one, the Browns have had a weakness at quarterback for many years. The team also formerly employed the aforementioned Shanahan who is known to be a huge Cousins supporter. This theory would also explain why Cousins met with owner Daniel Snyder to talk about potential trades. Cousins denies that he demanded a trade on Tuesday and said that he was just inquiring if the team had interest in trading him.