Kirk Cousins and Ryan Mallet are the most obvious ones I think, but since neither one has much experience leading a franchise, it'd probably be better to draft a more talented QB that BOB can groom.
And Washington seems to want more for Cousin's than he's worth. There isn't a "quick turnaround" vet QB available. Better to draft a guy. Luck, Griffin (pre-injury), Wilson, and Dalton all took their teams to the playoffs as rookies. Kaepernick took his team to the playoffs in his 2nd year after assuming the starting job. Recent history shows it doesn't take a vet QB to lead a quick turnaround. That's what the Chiefs have done, but there are multiple examples of teams doing the same thing with rookie QBs.
How does the salary work in the NFL? How much does the team really gain by cutting Schaub? Or can they cut him after preseason? Before? I feel like O'brien may want to have a shot at experimenting with Keenum, Schaub, and a QB from the draft.
Right now? About $4 million. Spend more than that on a FA and you're committing more money to the QB position than you would if you just kept Schaub. Can't spend TOO much on a FA QB without it preventing us from using cap space to address other issues.
I know this won't happen because everyone knows Schaub will be cut. But if Schaub by remote chance could be traded would that let us off the hook for his whole cap hit? Would that be the way it would work if he had value?
I think so. But there's probably no takers with his contract. So teams might want to take a chance and give him another shot in a new setting, but not at his current price tag. They know that we'll cut him if nobody wants to trade for him (which nobody will). In which case they'll just wait for him to be cut and pass through waivers before trying to sign him to a more reasonable deal in free agency. We'd still take a cap hit in that scenario.
Oops, you're right. http://www.nyjetscap.com/2012_Articles/salary-cap-explained.html "In a trade in the NFL all signing bonus money accelerates onto the cap of the team trading the player, just like as if the player was cut." Demeco Ryans counted almost $10.5 million against our cap last year in dead money even though we traded him to Philly.
