That didn't take long. Hours after Kirk Cousins did to the Browns what Cleveland fans had hoped Brandon Weeden would do to the Redskins, the "Hey, you think the 'Skins should trade Cousins?" talk began.
Former Redskins general manager Charley Casserly got the ball rolling Sunday night on Comcast SportsNet when he was asked the going rate for an enterprising fourth-round rookie QB.
“I’ll tell you what, you’ve got a minimum of a second-round pick on the table, I think,” Casserly said via the Washington Post. “I think if you can work it — and Bruce Allen’s a terrific trader — if you can work it, you might be able to pull two No. 2s out of this thing."
What the what? Look, Cousins appears to be a fantastic find for coach Mike Shanahan, who has a distinguished history of unearthing top-flight running backs at bargain basement prices. But let's all take a deep breath; Cousins has one NFL start and appeared in three games. Granted, he's exceeded everybody's expectations in limited action but that's worth a second-rounder, maybe two? Well, according to Casserly, you have to find the right sucker.
“Now what you’re gonna need is a team that needs a quarterback,” he continued. “That’s simple. I just wrote down Buffalo, Arizona, the Jets and Kansas City — four teams right there. You’ve got to have a team that liked him in college, because he hasn’t played a lot. But there ought to be enough people that [did]. And then when you look at this draft, there are not a lot of quarterbacks that are gonna jump out to you.
“Kansas City and Arizona, you’re talking about top five picks,” Casserly said. “If they don’t want to take a quarterback that high — which they probably don’t — now do I feel more comfortable with a Kirk Cousins, who I liked in college? I’ve seen him play in the pros. He plays another game like this, hey, I’m gonna give up a second [rounder], not even batting an eye. Now I’m gonna get squeezed by the Redskins, and maybe I’m gonna give up two, like the Matt Schaub trade to Houston. So they’ve got a shot right now to start regrouping some things.”
The great irony, of course, would be if the Cardinals, two years after trading for Kevin Kolb to be their next franchise quarterback, did the same thing with Cousins. For what it's worth (and it's not much), we like Cousins more than Kolb, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody -- including Kolb -- to disagree with those sentiments.
Let's assume a quarterback-needy team would be willing to give up a second-round pick for Cousins, that doesn't mean the Redskins should do it. We've learned a lot about the Redskins this season but one of the big takeaways is that Robert Griffin III takes a beating. And sometimes, that beating causes him to miss time. Put another way: in a must-win-game scenario with RGIII sidelined with an injury, would you feel more comfortable with Cousins or Rex Grossman?
That's all we're saying.
