Shortly after the Philadelphia Eagles announced a two-year contract extension with quarterback Sam Bradford, NFL Media's Ian Rapoport reported that the Eagles were among a handful of teams who waited for the Washington Redskins to place the franchise tag on Kirk Cousins before 'proceeding' with their quarterback.
The Redskins placed the franchise tag on Cousins around noon on March 1. Later that afternoon, the Eagles announced Bradford's new deal.
According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, the Redskins were indeed worried that if their quarterback reached free-agency, the division rival Eagles would attempt to sign him.
Per a league source, Washington was concerned that the Eagles would make a run at Cousins, if Washington either didn’t tag him at all, or if Washington applied only the transition tag.
This development makes quite a bit of sense given that Howie Roseman is back in charge. The Eagles selected Nick Foles over Cousins with the 88th overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, but NJ Advance Media's Mark Eckel reported that Roseman was among those in the organization that wanted to select Cousins with that pick.
As others have suggested, the Eagles could very well have been working on a new deal with Bradford while monitoring the market for Cousins. It seemed unlikely that Cousins would reach free-agency, so the Eagles had to have an option for what happened if they couldn't attempt to land Cousins. Given that Bradford's extension was only finalized after Cousins was officially retained by the Redskins, it appears that the Eagles were prepared to retain Bradford, but didn't want to do so until they knew they were going to have no chance to speak to Cousins.
Tim Kelly (@TimKellySports) is an editorial assistant for Eagledelphia.com.
