For the second offseason in a row, the Redskins are faced with the question of what to do with Cousins. They can let him leave as a free agent, sign him to a long-term contract or use on him a one-year franchise tag that keeps him with the team at a high price for another season.

It is fair to argue that the Redskins made the right call a year ago in applying the franchise tag to Cousins. In his one full season as a starter to that point, he had played at a slightly above-average level. That’s not a lot to go off of before handing a quarterback a huge, long-term contract. The franchise tag gave them another season to evaluate him while not leaving themselves without a capable starter, even though the one-year price tag was steep.

What was the result? His ill-timed interception aside, Cousins actually raised his level of play in a significant way in 2016. Here’s how, and what it means for the team entering this offseason:

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Cousins was a top-10 quarterback in Pro Football Focus’s grades this season. He earned an 85.9 grade that ranked eighth overall. The reason why this is significant is that it is not merely a reflection of Cousins being the triggerman in a high-powered offense. It factors in his performance on every play, independent of his supporting cast.

The biggest driver of his improvement – he ranked 15th with a PFF grade of 81.5 a season ago — came through his ability to execute difficult passes. PFF has a metric called Big-Time Throws that tracks every time a QB executes a high-degree-of-difficulty pass, such as making downfield throws with good timing and accuracy or fitting the ball into a tight window when under pressure, or throwing a receiver open when facing tight coverage. Cousins’s Big-Time Throw percentage in 2015 ranked 25th of 39 qualifying QBs last year, but in 2016 that climbed all the way to seventh of 39.

This showed up in his deep-ball numbers as well. Cousins’s passer rating on passes aimed 20 or more yards downfield this year was 118.1 – the fourth best in the league, behind only Matt Ryan, Tom Brady and Sam Bradford. He ranked just 16th in that statistic a season ago.

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Believe it or not, he also took better care of the ball. This might come as a surprise, given Cousins’s interception against the Giants and a couple of other head-scratching decisions, but Cousins improved his ability to avoid mistakes this year. His Turnover-Worthy Play percentage (the number of times a QB commits a turnover or near-turnover) was 12th-lowest this season after ranking 19th-lowest a year ago.

The increase in executing difficult throws while decreasing his rate of mistakes is an excellent combination for a QB, and a very positive sign when tracking Cousins’ career trajectory. Moreover, if you remove his sluggish five-game start to the season, Cousins performed at an above-average or better level in the majority of his games this season. For a guy with the reputation for the bone-headed play (and yes, he’s been guilty of some), there was a good amount of consistency to his production this year.

Cousins’s PFF grades by game

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Week Opponent Grade Rank 17 Giants 76.6 9 16 Bears 85.1 6 15 Panthers 79.0 12 14 Eagles 81.7 4 13 Cardinals 50.0 21 12 Cowboys 83.1 7 11 Packers 89.4 1 10 Vikings 74.3 15 8 Bengals 80.3 7 7 Lions 72.1 17 6 Eagles 81.7 10

His supporting cast got better, too. Quarterback play wasn’t the only area of the Redskins’ offense that improved this season. Across the board, they improved their league-wide ranking in PFF grades:

Category 2016 2015 Receiving 3 11 Rushing 13 30 Pass blocking 8 15 Run blocking 6 14

Cousins was only under pressure on 32 percent of his dropbacks this year, the 13th-lowest rate in the league, and the line performed even better as run-blockers. Rob Kelley emerged as a pleasant surprise at running back, finishing the year second in elusive rating after forcing a total of 39 missed tackles on his 181 touches. Jordan Reed is still an elite pass-catching tight end, and the team’s top three wideouts all earned grades above 70, led by Pierre Garcon, who ranked eighth at the position.

What does this mean for Washington next season?

Of course, all of the praise above for the Washington offense leads to an obvious question: How could they go from a division-winner in 2015 to a team that missed the playoffs and barely earned a winning record in 2016, if the quarterback and offense were that much better? The defense is one culprit (although this wasn’t a good Redskins team on defense in 2015, either), as is a far more competitive division, led by the resurgent Cowboys and Giants.

But while the finish to the season certainly has fans disappointed, the fact remains that with Cousins in tow, the Redskins would have one of the best returning offenses in the NFL entering the 2017 campaign (with first-round wide receiver Josh Doctson likely to be fully healthy and ready to contribute next season as well, taking the place of DeSean Jackson or Garcon, who are both set to become free agents). Not having Cousins on the roster would almost certainly mean having a multiple-year setback at the position. The Redskins’ No. 17 overall draft pick is not likely to yield a franchise QB-caliber option, and trades and free agency are no sure bet, either.

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The Redskins are more or less stuck with paying Cousins. The question then becomes whether it’ll be for one year or on a longer-term contract. If they can’t come to terms on a multi-year deal, a second year on the franchise tag isn’t an awful outcome for the Redskins. The required $24 million price tag to retain Cousins for a year is a small price to pay to keep the offense operating at a high level – and if Cousins puts together another season at the level he did in 2016, or takes another step forward, it would likely make offering a long-term max contract like the ones given the league’s top quarterbacks a lot easier to justify.

Jeff Dooley is the Editor in Chief of Pro Football Focus and a contributor to The Washington Post’s NFL coverage.