Breer’s Latest: Cousins, Bucs, L.A., Titans

In his latest notes column for NFL.com, Albert Breer of the NFL Network takes a closer look at the group of top quarterbacks in the 2016 draft class, before exploring several other noteworthy topics from around the NFL. Let’s dive in and round up the highlights….

  • Washington continues to plan on having Kirk Cousins back next season, as has been previously reported. Sources tell Breer that the team wants to lock up Cousins to a long-term contract before the deadline to apply franchise or transition tags to players. But if the two sides can’t work something out by then, Washington is “fully prepared” to franchise its quarterback.
  • Having worked in Arizona and observed the relationship between Steve Keim and Bruce Arians, Buccaneers GM Jason Licht would like to create a similar dynamic in Tampa Bay. Licht wants to hire a head coach who “he can challenge and be challenged by, without anyone getting offended.” The ideal candidate for the Bucs would also “instill toughness” and “set a culture,” and those are considered more important factors than whether a coach is offensive- or defensive-minded, according to Breer.
  • At this point, among the NFL’s team owners, there are two distinct camps when it comes to the Los Angeles relocation proposals — one camp is focused on the projects, and favors the Rams‘ proposal, while the other camp is focused on the owners and teams involved, and favors the Chargers‘ and Raiders‘ Carson plan. Neither side has the necessary votes, and it won’t be easy to obtain them, says Breer.
  • There’s concern within the Titans organization about how often their quarterbacks – particularly Marcus Mariota – have been hit and injured over the last couple seasons. Breer suggests that could be a factor that makes the team shy away from hiring Chip Kelly, since his quarterbacks in Philadelphia were frequently injured as well. Of course, one could argue that those injuries were the result of bad luck and/or poor offensive line play, rather than being coaching-related, but Michael Vick and Nick Foles both went down while playing behind solid lines for the Eagles.
  • The Browns‘ head coaching job certainly isn’t considered the most desirable one among the seven that are currently available, but coaches consider it significant to have a direct line to a team’s owner, and Cleveland’s next coach will report directly to Jimmy Haslam, Breer observes.
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