The Facts: Expect Cousins to play this season on his one-year guaranteed salary of $19.95 million. That's the word from Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com, who reports that both sides assume they're stuck on the one-year deal for 2016 and will have to reassess in 2017. Breer describes contract talks as "going nowhere."

Diehards Line: If Cousins were to get franchised again next season, he’d be guaranteed at least $23.94 million for 2017. And if he doesn’t get franchised again next season, he’s a free agent who can shop his services to any team. So unless the team is willing to guarantee him more than $44 million over the first two years of any long-term deal, there’s no reason for Cousins to sign. And as PFT's Michael David Smith notes, from all indications, Washington isn’t ready to commit that kind of money to Cousins, who played very well over the second half of last season but still isn’t very experienced. If Cousins has a big season in 2016, Washington is going to have to pay him a fortune in 2017, either on the franchise tag or on a long-term deal. And for Washington, that would be a good problem to have: If Cousins proves himself as a franchise quarterback this year, they won't have any problem paying. It's just not going to happen this summer.