“We were gonna have him [on the team]; there was no doubt about it,” Allen told SiriusXM NFL Radio. “And we’ve expressed that to Kirk, and he’s expressed the same to us. We just have to this year get together and figure out the long-term deal. The reason we did the exclusive is we’re tired of all the nonsense that we’re thinking of trading [Cousins], or someone wants a trade. No. He’s going to be our quarterback, and we have to work out the agreement for the long term.”

“We wanted to end all the scuttlebutt of trades, and the rumor mill about that,” Allen told a Tennessee radio station the same afternoon. “We tried last year to sign an extension and we just didn’t get it done. We’re back at it now. Our goal is to sign him long term. We told him that. He has said he wants that. So it’ll just take some time, and we’ll get it done.”

These are statements that don’t leave much wiggle room. “He’s going to be our quarterback” does not include any space for a hedge.

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More importantly, as Allen noted, the team took a decisive step toward ending all the nonsense and speculation about trades and changes by slapping Cousins with that exclusive tag in late February.

Because the thing is, speculation would not benefit anyone. It wouldn’t benefit the team, which seems beset by uncertainty. It wouldn’t benefit Cousins, who presumably would like to know where he’ll be playing in 2017. It sure wouldn’t benefit the fan base, which is a bit shaken by recent events.

The Redskins can’t control members of the media, of course. But they did the next best thing: They took a firm stance and backed it up with action. There was no better way to end the nonsense and speculation than with the exclusive tag, and so the Redskins took that step. Boom. Done.