Which is fine. You probably watch football out of a desire to watch football, not out of a desire to dig deep into contract rules six weeks before football arrives. But at least some observers are already playing this thing out, and deciding that Washington’s best recourse would not be to wait. It would be to trade Cousins right now. ESPN’s Adam Schefter, for example.

“I don’t believe they will do this, but the best thing the Redskins could do would be trade him,” Schefter told Chris Cooley on ESPN 980 Tuesday morning. “Trade him.”

Schefter — who was speaking speculatively, as an NFL observer, not reporting or making predictions — referred to Monday’s ESPN.com piece by Bill Barnwell, which made the same case. Here’s Barnwell:

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Washington is quickly running out of options. It can use the franchise tag on Cousins for a third time next year and make him the highest-paid quarterback in the league by a significant margin, which will mean it will have paid a quarterback who Allen & Co. didn’t believe was worth a long-term deal a record $78.4 million over three seasons and then be subject to the same long-term issues a year from now. Washington can hope that Cousins changes his mind and suddenly wants to stay, which seems unlikely given that the organization just tried to take him down in its own public forum. More plausibly, the team will try to slap the transition tag on Cousins and be stuck facing down an offer it can’t match.

Barnwell’s noted the possibility Washington could lose Cousins with little, or even no compensation, and then asked, “With that in mind, does it make sense for Washington to try to be proactive about its future and trade Cousins now?”

And Schefter asked the same thing Tuesday morning, saying the team might either be stuck by an unmatchable offer (in the transition tag scenario), or be forced to cripple itself with another franchise tag.

“The best thing to do in my mind — I don’t think they’re going to do it — is to trade him to a team that you know could sign him, a team that’s willing to make that trade,” Schefter said. “Just like in the NBA, [where] we see those trades all the time. Paul George to Oklahoma City; you think Oklahoma City knows that it can sign Paul George? I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this: I’ll bet you the Rams think that they could sign Kirk Cousins.”

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Schefter rattled off three potential trade partners — which again, were not reports, just him brainstorming live on air, having a bit of July fun. Maybe a deal involving the Rams and Jared Goff, or the 49ers and Brian Hoyer, or even the Lions and Matthew Stafford.

“The only places you can trade him are to places that truly believe and think that they’re going to be able to sign him long-term,” Schefter said. “Who are those places? Sean McVay [in L.A.], Kyle Shanahan [in San Francisco] and the state of Michigan, where he’s from.”

Cousins, of course, said the postseason options aren’t as dire or bleak as observers have suggested, and said his preference would be to remain in Washington long-term, even if that meant a continuing series of one-year deals.

“I think one narrative has been that if I don’t sign a deal this July that I’m not going to be with the Redskins beyond this season, and I just don’t believe that to be true,” Cousins said Tuesday morning on 106.7 the Fan’s “Grant and Danny Show.” “While there’s a deadline this summer, the real deadline to make a decision on next year is next year. And that’s not where my focus is, my focus is on playing football but there will be plenty of time to figure that all out down the road. And again, my first choice would be to be with the Redskins long-term.”

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Still, the machinery for making that work starts to look rather complicated. Not that trading a starting quarterback in July is exactly simple. Schefter said repeatedly that he does not think this will happen, and that he doesn’t even think phone calls about a potential trade will be made. But he couldn’t stop laying out the case for it for the Redskins.

“Either they’re having a contract dictated to them on the transition tag, or they’re franchising him for 34.8 [million dollars],” Schefter said. “I mean, those are horrible, horrible choices. Horrible. … So now, knowing that you’re staring at an awful scenario after the year, does it make sense to be forward-thinking? …

“Again, I’m just telling you, this is just another alternative school of thought. I don’t believe it’s going to happen. I don’t believe that this is how it’s gonna play out. If it were my situation, that’s what I would do. I would try to recoup maximum value now and get out of what has become a bad situation that could have been averted two, three years ago.

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