Allen led-drafts in 2014 and 2017 were good ones.
He let the personnel guys in the front office crunch their numbers and make the selections for the most part IMO.
The problem with Bruce is he is unusually frugal in terms of negotiating player contracts.
While the Redskins were profligate before and negotiated against themselves for certain players in free agency, it seems the current organization is gun shy after the RGIII pick and the high profile FA busts to make signature moves at spots they can't seem to fill needs through other methods.
I recall in Tampa that quite a number of players that won for Gruden ended up leaving Tampa as free agents because Allen was not willing to acknowledge the market for these players.
By the end of his term there the Bucs were cooked. They were almost back to being the basket case team that they had been for much of their history up until the late 1990's.
I would have to think the Cousins negotiations or lack thereof is a case in point here.
I think we saw enough in 2015 to see that Cousins was not a flash in the pan, but rather a solid passer from the pocket who could get a bit better with more experience. Not a star, but a guy at 26 you could build with for 2-3-4 years while you acquired other key players to add to the roster.
There was certainly the opportunity to sign him that first offseason to a deal, perhaps one in the 3-5 year range.
Less risk, shorter term. Not a market-maker deal and one that Cousins was probably not even looking for.
But franchising him took the bar for a deal from perhaps the $14-$15M range over $20M and then onto $24M in Year 2 of the tag.
You only franchise a player you KNOW you want to keep and really think is a top 5 player for you so you can earnestly work on a long-term deal that reduces the up front cap hit.
The other strategy in franchising a player is to get that extra year of service out of a key veteran if you think you have a legit chance to contend and are willing to walk away the next offseason.
While it wasn't a franchise tag, New England did a similar thing with Darrelle Revis. They paid him the value of the $12M tag (at the time) on a 1 year deal to try and get a ring with the Patriots. Both sides were going to walk away after that season.
If the Redskins were not going to build with Kirk, they should have traded his rights before the draft last season and moved on.
While the argument can be made that at 7-9 we are now going to get a pick in the top half of the draft and can select a qb to replace Cousins.
But that opportunity in all likelihood would have been there anyway with Colt McCoy or a rookie from 2017 starting games this season.
And the Redskins would have had the additional draft pick(s) to work with.
Now?
Will there be any compensation?
Stay tuned.
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