Kirk Cousins had multiple reasons to sign with the Raiders. Some substantive, at least one superficial.
“Best jerseys in pro sports I think,” Cousins told the team’s website on Monday. “I remember being in warm-ups once playing the Raiders and our head coach looked at me and said, ‘Those have to be the best jerseys that they are in pro sports.’ And I said, ‘You know what Coach, I have to agree. Those are really sharp.’”
Cousins didn’t specify the team for which he was playing at the time. He has a 3-0 career record as a starter against the Raiders — one with each of his three prior teams.
In 2017, Cousins and Washington beat the Raiders, 27-10. In 2019, Cousins at the Vikings beat the Raiders, 34-14. In 2024, Cousins and the Falcons beat the Raiders, 15-9.
Despite getting the victory in Las Vegas on a Monday night in December 2024, Cousins was benched the next day for then-rookie Michael Penix Jr. Cousins didn’t play again that season.
Now, he’s on track to start for the Raiders in Week 1, unless the Raiders don’t make quarterback Fernando Mendoza the first pick in the 2026 draft and unless Mendoza wins the job right out of the games.
As to his observation about the silver and black jerseys (along with the rest of the uniform), it’s hard to argue. There’s a reason the Raiders’ look has resisted becoming Nikefied in the 14 years since the company took over the apparel deal from Reebok, when change for the sake of change swept through the league.
While the team has needed a fix that so far remains elusive, there’s nothing broken about the Raiders’ uniforms. They’re simple and classic. And they’ve never felt compelled to embrace numbers that look different from the standard football-jersey numbers that were once nearly universal in the NFL.
The Commanders have hired a new coach.
Washington announced on Tuesday that the club has brought in John Glenn to be assistant special teams coordinator.
Glenn is back with the Commanders after spending last season as Raiders linebackers coach under former head coach Pete Carroll. He had been with Carroll for most of the coach’s tenure with Seattle, serving as linebackers coach from 2018-2023.
Glenn was the Commanders’ assistant special teams coach in 2024 before reuniting with Carroll in 2025.
When the Commanders drafted Jer’Zhan “Johnny” Newton out of Illinois in 2024, they were expecting him to make an immediate impact. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, but the team still thinks that impact is coming.
Commanders coach Dan Quinn says that when he thinks of players who are going to take a big step forward this season, the first player he thinks about is Newton, who is healthy and eager to show what he can do.
“First one that comes to mind is defensive tackle Johnny Newton,” Quinn told Kevin Clark on This Is Football. “His first year was injuries, had a foot injury to come in, I think he’s a guy that’s about to absolutely take off. As a defensive tackle, man is he quick. Beating somebody to the spot, his ability as an interior rusher, I think he’ll be somebody you say, ‘I remember talking to Dan in March or April and this guy turned out to be a heavy hitter.’”
Newton was a part-time player in the Commanders’ defensive line rotation last season, playing 38 percent of the Commanders’ defensive snaps. He still managed five sacks in his part-time role, and this year Quinn expects Newton to play more, and contribute more to the Commanders’ pass rush.
Wide receiver Makai Lemon is expected to be a first-round pick in this month’s draft and he’s making the rounds with some of the teams that could add him to their lineup.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that Lemon visited with the Chiefs on Thursday. Kansas City has the ninth overall pick this year.
Lemon is also slated to meet with the Jets, Giants, Commanders and Dolphins. The Jets have the second and 16th picks, the Giants are slated to pick fourth, the Commanders are at No. 7 and the Dolphins have both the 11th and 30th picks. Lemon also spent time with the Saints, who pick eighth, in March.
Lemon had 79 receptions for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns at USC during the 2025 season. He was given the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top receiver.
Kirk Cousins has spent 14 years in the NFL. He’s been to the playoffs three times. He has one postseason win.
And he nevertheless sits near the top of the list of all-time NFL earners.
Depending on the source, Cousins is either second behind Matthew Stafford or third behind Stafford and Tom Brady. Once the latest $20 million is added to the total Cousins pile, he’ll likely become the undisputed No. 2.
And $20 million is a key number. It’s the bookend to the figure that sparked Cousins’s climb.
In 2016, Washington applied the franchise tag to Cousins, at $20 million, after his four-year, fourth-round contract expired. But they offered him a long-term deal with an average annual value of $16 million.
It made the decision a no-brainer for Cousins. Take the $20 million, show up for everything, and focus on having the kind of season that would lay the foundation for a long-term deal.
In 2017, Washington tagged him again, at $24 million. (Some in the organization at the time lobbied for Colt McCoy at $3 million, arguing that Cousins wasn’t eight times better than McCoy.)
As of 2018, Washington wasn’t inclined to give Cousins a 44-percent increase (by rule) for a third tag. He became a free agent and the highest-paid player in NFL history after the Vikings boxed out the Jets.
His initial three-year deal in Minnesota became a six-year stay. When the Vikings insisted on a year-to-year arrangement as of 2024, Cousins opted for the multi-year financial security in Atlanta, which (as he quickly learned) didn’t mean multi-year job security.
Through it all, Cousins kept adding cash to the pile. He got $98.7 million for two years with the Falcons. His new deal with the Raiders puts him north of $330 million.
It’s obviously a temporary title. As the NFL’s money increases, the salary cap will rise and the market at the various positions will, too. Inevitably, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes will be No. 1 and No. 2.
For now, though, the biggest claim to fame for Kirk Cousins comes not from his exploits in the postseason, but from trips to the bank made in January and other months of the year.
