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RICHMOND, Va. -- While he auditions for the Washington Redskins yet again, Kirk Cousins will be paid almost $1.25 million per game. Thats a lot of money to figure out whether youre interested in having a long-term relationship with your quarterback.Only the second signal-caller to play a?full season under the franchise tag since it was instituted in 1993 (Drew Brees was the first), Cousins received a 2,923 percent raise, from $660,000 last season to $19.95 million on a one-year deal, according to ESPN Stats & Information. However, even after Cousins, whom the team drafted and developed, had arguably the greatest year statistically for a passer in Redskins history, management still has doubts about him.For Cousins to get the multiyear contract he believes he deserves, he must convince the Redskins hes not a one-hit wonder.Great, he had one year, Redskins coach Jay Gruden said at the beginning of training camp. There have been a lot of quarterbacks in the history of the league that have had good, solid, one-year seasons.Under the collective bargaining agreement, the Redskins werent obligated to give Cousins what he wanted -- but theyre in dangerous territory now. If you have a top-tier quarterback in a quarterback league, you dont risk angering him. How the situation is resolved could determine the direction of the franchise for a decade.With Cousins leading the offense, things have been good recently. He was the biggest reason the Redskins won the NFC East last season despite ranking 28th in the league in defense and 30th in yards per rush at only 3.7. Cousins, 27, led the NFL with a 69.8 completion percentage, becoming the first Redskins quarterback to lead the league in that stat since Sonny Jurgensen did it in 1970. Cousins ranked sixth in total QBR and eighth in yards per attempt, and he set Redskins single-season marks for passing yards (4,166) and completions (379).Mike Shanahan wasnt surprised. When the two-time Super Bowl winner coached the Redskins, he drafted Cousins. Shanahan said years ago that Cousins would be a top-10 passer. A lot of people thought I was crazy, but I know what I saw, Shanahan told ESPN.com recently.When youve been around the great ones, there are certain things that jump out at you, and I could see it very quickly with Kirk. The awareness, the ability to make quick decisions, the arm strength -- making all the throws with very little leverage -- the quick release ... we saw it all in practice from Day 1.But its also the intangibles. Hes very competitive. He has the courage. Hell hang in the pocket, focus on the defense, and still be able to slide and feel and go through his reads. Then theres innate intelligence you have to have; Kirk is extremely bright. And one of the biggest things, and Ive seen this in all the great quarterbacks Ive been around, is that the buck stops with Kirk. He takes accountability. Hell put the blame all on himself. Hes already a top-10 quarterback and hell be in the top five. Hes going to be a perennial Pro Bowler.Well, Shanahan is all in on Cousins. Of course, the Redskins arent interested in Shanahans opinion. Among the teams current decision-makers, no one stood on the table for Cousins in the offseason, and thats why the sides never got close on a long-term deal. Talk to people in the organization, and several will tell you that Cousins only had nine good games. At the NFL scouting combine in February, Redskins officials were playing down Cousins accomplishments to their counterparts on other teams.Bottom line: The Redskins dont totally believe in Cousins. They also couldnt permit him to become an unrestricted free agent. Now, Cousins has to do it again. And again and again, Gruden said.Its about having two, three, four years, he said. Luckily for us, were in a position to look at him another year.Although Cousins is way too smart to negotiate in public or say anything that would potentially anger owner Daniel Snyder -- Im not lying awake at night. I got a pretty good raise, Cousins said -- he often has said he wants to be where hes wanted. The only reason Cousins is with the Redskins is because Shanahan and his son, Kyle, who spent four seasons as the teams offensive playcaller, pushed to draft him in the fourth round in 2012 after Snyder and team president Bruce Allen traded four high-round picks for the right to take quarterback Robert Griffin III second overall.Snyder doted on Griffin, who had a spectacular rookie season. But Griffin subsequently suffered a major knee injury, struggled in the pocket and became a divisive force within the organization. He is now trying to rebuild his career in Cleveland. Entering his fifth season, Cousins for the first time began training camp atop the depth chart and with a unified locker room following his lead. He even had a solid preseason game Thursday night; as ESPN Redskins reporter John Keim wrote, Cousins showed poise, good decision-making and going through his progressions at a solid pace.He doesnt have to worry about nobody on his heels, star wide receiver DeSean Jackson said. Were all behind him.The question is, for how long?If Cousins has another big year and the sides remain far apart in contract talks, the Redskins could use their franchise tag on him again. Cousins would receive a 20 percent raise over his current salary, taking him to $23.94 million in 2017. Cousins would get a 44 percent increase if the Redskins applied the tag a third time, putting his salary at more than $34.47 million in 2018.The more likely scenario is that if Cousins is tagged again and the sides fail to agree on an extension before 2018, Cousins would be traded. But theres a reason teams dont trade talented passers: There arent enough of them.It did surprise me that they didnt tie him up, and I expect him to play even better this season, Shanahan said. Look at Drew Brees. You think San Diego would have let him get away if they had to do it all over again? When you get guys like Kirk, you dont let them get away.In the NFL, theres nothing more important than getting it right at quarterback. Cousins isnt the quarterback Snyder wanted -- but hes the one the Redskins cant afford to lose.Offcial Jerseys . The incident occurred at 19:56 of the second period of the Kings 4-2 road win over Edmonton on Sunday. 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He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday.TORONTO -- Ralph Krueger, the head coach of plucky, piecemeal Team Europe, shines like a light. His coaching tenure with the Edmonton Oilers ended early and badly; now hes the chairman of Southampton, the Premier League football club. Not many men can switch sports at the highest levels. Krueger managed it because when he enters a room, his heart is as open as the door he walked through.On Thursday at the World Cup of Hockey, he was asked about how much the human heart tells in our games, hockey most of all.I dont think theres a game more honest than ice hockey, he said. Theres no hiding here. ... If youre not connected, it doesnt matter how much skill you have, youre going to be dealing with luck and chance. Hockey will punish you if youre dependent on that. Its such a great game because of that. Such an honest game.Heart is an amorphous concept, easy to lie about. Its nice to think that desire can overcome any weakness, because most of us have weaknesses and the alternative is believing that youll never be good enough. And underdogs win sometimes, which means heart must win sometimes, too.Heart is also an impossible thing to metric, and there are times when having all the heart in the world doesnt help. In some ways, big hearts can seem the easiest to wound. Theyre bigger targets.Dean Lombardi, the general manager of Team USA and the Los Angeles Kings, has a huge heart. He is known for his almost blind devotion to his players. If he falls in love with you, he will love you forever. He is the sort of man who makes other men wish they saw the world as clearly as he does.Like Krueger, he, too, talked about passion and hockey on Thursday. Unlike Krueger and Team Europe, Lombardi and his team were going home soon after.Lombardi talked specifically about how he believes heart can close the talent gap between teams.I think that our game allows emotion, competitiveness, caring about each other, to close that gap more than any other sport, he said. And thats why I think its the greatest game. Theres no doubt in my mind that the formula has worked. Weve won two Stanley Cups. The first thing, yes, we had talent, no question about it. But the reason we won, we were a frickin team.When Lombardi was building Team USA, he began with the premise that no matter what roster he made, it would be less talented than Canadas.His coach, John Tortorella, agreed.Ill be honest: Were not as deep as Canada skill-wise, he said. Not sure USA Hockey will like me saying that, but its the truth. Its a situation where I still think, in our mind, we could not just skill our way through Canaada.ddddddddddddSo Lombardi decided that his team needed to compensate with heart. He used his hands to show the talent gap between Team USA and Canada. He said he could have picked a different roster that would have narrowed that gap, and he drew his hands closer together. Instead, he purposefully picked a roster that widened that gap, he said. He pulled his hands farther apart.Their heart, he said, would more than make up the greater distance. In his mind, then, talent has a ceiling, but heart doesnt. Heart must be exponential.He lifted the hand that represented Team USA over the Canadian one.Give me 22 guys that care, Lombardi said. Thats where it starts. From there you can build competitiveness and culture and everything else. But if you dont have 22 guys that care, youre not going to get to square two.Then Team USA came here (with 23 guys) and lost 3-0 to Kruegers Team Europe, lightly regarded almost to the point of invisibility. The Americans didnt just lose that game. They were flat, uninspired, gutless. Never mind too-talented Canada, which also beat them. They couldnt beat a group cobbled together from eight different countries deemed too uncompetitive to dress their own teams.What did that that say about Team USAs heart?Krueger also used his hands to answer that question. In the end, what we did with the U.S. in the first game -- maybe it was like this, the skill levels, he said, and he held the hand representing his team well below his American hand. But the work ethic and the passion and the team spirit was able to bring us above them on that day.Now his other hand, like his team, was on top.Lombardi didnt much like the suggestion that his group had been outgutted by an afterthought team that is also this tournaments oldest.No. There were guys in tears in that room the other night, and they were real, he said of the moments after the loss to Canada that eliminated them. And some of the texts I got from players, Ill treasure for the rest of my life. Thats good stuff. Those are things you dont forget, even in failure. And so that part we got down.Even if heart cant be quantified, Lombardis math doesnt add up. He thought heart would help his players close the gap between them and the better team, which is advancing to Saturdays semifinal. Instead they were caught by a worse one, which will play in Sundays.The harshest possible assessment of Team USA is that it had no heart.The kindest one is that it was made to be broken. ' ' '