When the new league year begins in the middle of March, Alex Smith’s trade to Washington will be finalized as will a contract that makes the quarterback one of the highest-paid players in the NFL.
Washington’s trade for Alex Smith doesn’t solve a damn thing
Is Smith a better quarterback than Kirk Cousins? Probably not.
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Smith, 33, is reportedly set to receive an extension that includes the third-highest amount of guaranteed money in the NFL (behind only Matthew Stafford and Andrew Luck) and the fourth-highest average salary (behind Stafford, Derek Carr, and Luck).
It is — to put it simply — a staggering amount.
It’s the kind of contract that would be eye-popping no matter what team handed it out, but the fact it’s Washington raises an obvious question: why not give that money to Kirk Cousins?
How much different are Smith and Cousins?
The most significant and objective difference between Smith and Cousins is the former is four years and three months older than the latter.
The statistical difference isn’t as cut and dry.
Smith threw 26 touchdowns in 2017; Cousins threw 27. Smith completed 67.5 percent of his passes; Cousins completed 64.3. The biggest difference between the quarterbacks this year was Smith threw just five interceptions, while Cousins threw 13.
But in a team sport with 11 players on an offense, there’s a little more to it than that. Three significant factors appeared to play in Smith’s favor during his career-best year:
- Smith was sacked 35 times with an average of 3.65 seconds before each sack, according to Pro Football Focus. Cousins was sacked 41 times in an average of 3.18 seconds. Essentially, Cousins had less time to throw.
- The trio of Tyreek Hill, Albert Wilson, and Travis Kelce are a superior trio of receiving threats than what Cousins had in Washington.
- Kansas City led the league with 4.7 yards per rushing attempt and finished with the league’s leading rusher, Kareem Hunt. Washington was 30th at 3.6 yards per attempts.
So while Smith’s 104.7 passer rating is impressive, it looks like it will be difficult to duplicate in Washington where Cousins finished 2017 with a 93.9 rating.
Washington probably could’ve had Cousins at the Smith price
Cousins is about two months away from becoming the highest-paid player in NFL history. There’s just no way around it at this point.
The trade for Smith means Washington is moving on and with that, a 29-year-old quarterback with a Pro Bowl and a 93.7 career passer rating will hit free agency.
Granted, he’s not a perfect player by any stretch. He finished 2017 as the NFL’s 12th highest-rated passer. But quarterbacks as productive as Cousins just don’t hit the open market. Ever.
The current benchmark for lucrative NFL contracts belongs to Stafford, who signed a five-year, $135 million deal with the Detroit Lions that averages out to $27 million per year with $92 million guaranteed.
It’s not unreasonable to guess Cousins could fetch around $30 million per year with $100 million guaranteed because that’s just how capitalism works, baby.
There was always the impending possibility of a hypothetical blockbuster deal on the horizon that made agreeing to a long-term deal difficult for Washington and Cousins. The quarterback had no reason to sign a deal with the team which didn’t make him the league’s richest quarterback.
But Washington brought the inevitability on themselves by punting on his deal multiple times. After he finished with a 101.6 passer rating in his first full season as a starter in 2015, the team gave him a franchise tag. Then again when he shattered the franchise record with 4,917 passing yards in 2016.
By then, it was already too late. The $94 million over four years with $71 million guaranteed headed to Smith almost definitely would’ve been enough to lock down Cousins two years ago. Just $25 million per year would’ve been the highest average in the NFL this time last year.
Now he’s going to get his huge pay day. Some team is going to dish out a record amount. Why wasn’t it Washington? It had as much room to make the deal happen as any other prospective team in the mix and as much need.
But Washington just never seemed convinced that Cousins was worth fully investing in, and now the team will see if that decision pays off or haunts the franchise for years to come.
Smith isn’t being paid like a band aid
My first reaction to the trade announced Tuesday night was that Smith was about to get stuck in the same role he had in his final years with San Francisco and Kansas City. After time as each team’s starter, he eventually became a lame duck when Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Mahomes were drafted by the 49ers and Chiefs, respectively.
It’s the likely scenario that ends his time at his latest stop too.
But the hunt for a new franchise quarterback isn’t going to begin soon in Washington. It just can’t. The exact contract terms will reveal when an out can happen, but it’s probably a fair guess that the team won’t realistically be able to turn over the keys to someone else until about 2021.
He is Washington’s quarterback of the immediate future ... which solves what exactly?
Cousins was an efficient passer incapable of putting a subpar team on his back to take it over a .500 hump. It would be surprising if Smith is able to do much better.
Smith saves the team a bit of money, but will also cost it a third-round draft pick and one of the NFL’s best slot cornerbacks, Kendall Fuller.
The Chiefs are a better team after trading Smith. Washington got worse.
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