With Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins set to become an unrestricted free agent on March 14, safety DeAngelo Hall has taken a parting shot at his teammate.
Cousins became the first quarterback to receive the franchise tag in consecutive seasons after receiving the designation in 2017 but will test the open market next week.
Hall believes Cousins received immense support from the Redskins organization, but that the sentiment wasn't mutual.
"We kind of felt like the commitment wasn’t there from Kirk," the safety said Tuesday during an appearance on SportsCenter. "We obviously wanted Kirk. We franchised him because we wanted him there. It was up to ownership and the front office to kind of work those numbers out. They couldn’t get the numbers worked out, so he signed franchise tags those two football seasons. Everybody in that locker room was behind Kirk, wanted him there, but we wanted to feel like he wanted to be there as well. Having played 14 years, I understand ‘let’s go get the money,’ but at some point, there has to be mutual interest from both parties to want to get better collectively as a team. Paying Kirk probably the $30 million he’s going to get, we couldn’t do that and get better as a football team."
The Redskins already built their contingency plan, agreeing to a deal to acquire Alex Smith from the Kansas City Chiefs in exchange for a third-round pick and cornerback Kendall Fuller.
Hall also admitted the Redskins initially undervalued Cousins, allowing him to walk when the organization could no longer afford him after two consecutive tags.
"I think we took a little too much in realizing how good he was. Then when it was time to really pay him, we kind of said 'hey, we want to see a little bit more.' And we did that, and then his numbers kind of went up. Then we said 'well, we still want to keep (our long-term offer) in this ballpark.' And he wanted a little more, so we said 'all right, we'll franchise you again.' Finally, we just started getting a feeling as though, oh, maybe he really doesn't want to be here. He wanted to kind of pick his own destination, I felt like."
- With h/t to The Washington Post
