Side note on Miller. In 2016 he swore he'd never sign a tag as he feels it's unfair to the players and he was in a position to backup that opinion with his own actions and it wasn't about the $$$. He had already made $40M in his career up till that point so it wasn't like he'd starve if he sat out a year. Well, he didn't sign the tag and how did that work out for him?
At the deadline to sign tagged players to a LTD in mid-July he got 6 years/$114M with $42M fully guaranteed at signing and another $28M in other guarantees (meaning guarantees becoming fully guaranteed if he's still on the team) due by Mar 2018. $19M in those other guarantees became fully guaranteed on 3/13/2017, at the end of the 2017 league season and the other $9M fully guaranteed on 3/18/2018, just after the 2018 league starts. So basically he pockets $70M in 2 years but because the cap hit spreads over 5 years on the signing bonus he doesn't hit the cap any harder than $22.4M in any of those 6 years. Denver can opt out of each of the last 2 years of the deal and if they didn't exercise the 2020 option they'd have paid him $78M over 4 years.
Anyway, players always say it's not about the money but Von Miller actually backed that up by not taking the tag and got rewarded with a major contract. Kirk would a) want more than that and b) has already said he'd sign a $35M tender. Signing that would only strengthen his bargaining position, not weaken it, that's like $80M over 3 years and Washington will be in the same situation next year.