The playoff picture couldn’t be any clearer for the Redskins with two games left in the regular season.
Sunday’s 35-25 win over the Bills means that they will be hosting a playoff game as the NFC East champions if they win both contests. A big reason for getting into that position has been the play of quarterback Kirk Cousins. Cousins has thrown 12 touchdowns and two interceptions while the team has gone 4-2 in the last six weeks to rise to the top of the heap in the division.
That stretch also appears to have cemented Cousins’s future in Washington. While Mike Jones of the Washington Post reports that contract talks with the impending free agent have “not yet reached advanced stages,” the Redskins are convinced that they want Cousins back next season.
They can make that happen by agreeing to a multi-year contract with Cousins or by using the franchise tag to both ensure he sticks around and buy themselves more time to work out a long-term agreement. Jones adds there’s some internal debate in the organization about Cousins’s value, but that debate can play out for a while before the team has to decide about using the tag and the key point appears to be that Cousins will continue to be the man under center well beyond the next two weeks.