Everything I know about blogging click bait headlines is embedded that title. See the end of this post for the explanation.
But, Hog Heaven is also perplexed at why Kirk Cousins isn’t already under long-term contract to the Redskins along the deal Cousins own people offered before the 2016 season: $20 million per year with $55 – $60 million guaranteed.
In hindsight, that would have been a bargain price for Cousins. The Redskins should have jumped all over that…then…instead of offering it up now, a year late.
The Redskins keep playing chicken with Cousins expecting him to blink, and he never does.
We are just trying to understand why. We don’t entirely trust Washington’s brain trust, but all teams follow a coherent (to them) approach to the roster.
Could the Redskins be stalling Cousins hoping that Jimmy Garoppolo will be in play in 2018? Isn’t that the same game Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco allegedly is playing waiting for Cousins?
The ‘Niners are three or four years away from title contention. Wouldn’t it make more sense for Shanahan to go for the less proven and far less expensive Garoppolo than Cousins?
Cousins is a “win now” play for any team that signs him in 2018. Garoppolo can grow with a developing team.
This is the NFL Dead Zone, when gossip, rumors, wild guesses and sheer speculation pass as “news.”
Hog Heaven is a hobby site. We make no pretense at journalism. But, we know good management and bad decisions when we see it. Our guiding principle here is “thoughtful analysis about the Redskins,” especially the decision-making process that has hindered us since 2000.
Motto: We drink the Kool-Aid, but we don’t swallow everything.
We’ve seen fewer bad decisions and more good management in recent years. Scot McCloughan’s forced departure gave us a moment. The 2017 Redskins profile as an eight or nine-win team whether Scot is here or not.
Good management, process improvement, strategic competitive advantage … nobody wants to read that boring stuff on sports blogs. That’s too much like work. Sports is where you go to escape all that.
What’s a blogger to do?
Click bait writing is the life blood of the Web.
After 14-years as a hobby blogger, we’ve learned a few things. The most important is what every commercial copywriter knows:
80 percent of everyone that sees a headline won’t follow it to the story.
80 percent of those who do get to the story won’t read past the first paragraph.
The headline is the message and it must grab.
For sports blogs, the best headline always includes star player names and the name of a specific team.
In the social media age, that headline is salted with sensationalism based on fear over fact. It’s a surefire magnet for Internet clicks. (Works for politics, too.)
The offseason is NFL Lying Season when everyone in the league is a lying liar who lies.
This time, that might include me. I need clicks too.
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