Kirk Cousins Contract Was a "Trigger" Between Scot McCloughan and Bruce Allen

Stories are still trickling out about the dysfunction in the Washington front office that led to former general manager Scot McCloughan getting smeared on the way out. Today, MMQB’s Albert Breer details three situations that were at the forefront between McCloughan and team president Bruce Allen.

The biggest factor was an apparent disagreement over Kirk Cousins in 2015. Newly installed as starter over RG3, Cousins was still on his rookie deal and had a lot to prove. Nevertheless, McCloughan reportedly wanted to extend him at the end of training camp, while Allen dragged his feet.

By December when Cousins had started to heat up, it was too late to get a deal done that the team thought was financially prudent, yada yada yada, they’re now in the position of having to trade their starting QB or risk losing him for nothing next offseason. Breer writes that this was a “noticeable trigger in the explosion of the relationship between McCloughan and Allen.”

The other two situations Breer details are about McCloughan’s communication with one player who some around the team did not feel was adequately fighting through an arm injury, and one who blew multiple defensive back assignments and drew the ire of Jay Gruden. It doesn’t specify who in the organization disapproved of these conversations — and it’s unusual in the NFL that they would be handled by the GM — but it’s presumable that Gruden and Allen were not happy about it.

One veteran player told Breer that McCloughan was never drunk in front of the team, and another one said that if he was he “did a good job of hiding it.”

It’s worthwhile to read the full piece at MMQB for context.