Buffalo Bills: Is Kirk Cousins a realistic target?

With the Buffalo Bills ideally wanting a new quarterback and Kirk Cousins all but gone from Washington, how likely is a union between the two?

You can make an argument that Tyrod Taylor deserves to be given another chance with the Buffalo Bills. Regardless of your opinion of the polarizing quarterback, he is still the signal caller who helped end their 17-year playoff drought this past season.

Unfortunately for Taylor, despite stating his desire to remain in Western New York, the overriding belief is Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott would prefer to move on from him. In fact, we would take it a step further and say he is all but gone.

With this in mind, speculation seems to indicate the Bills will be in the thick of the action, when it comes to bidding for Kirk Cousins. The question is, how realistic is it to expect him to end up in Buffalo?

Certainly, you can understand why Beane and McDermott would be interested in Cousins. Since taking over as the Washington Redskins’ full time starter, he has produced three consecutive 4,000 yard seasons and thrown for at least 25 touchdowns on each occasion.

Those types of numbers surely have Bills fans salivating at the possibility of the 29-year-old playing in Buffalo. Especially those who do not see Taylor as the long-term solution.

In that respect, Cousins can be considered more aggressive with his passing, while still being more accurate than Taylor. The only major disadvantage is that Cousins does not offer much in the way of a scrambling threat.

Overall though, you can still appreciate why Cousins is such an appealing option. And comments he made to SiriusXM NFL Radio last Friday, as reported by Cleveland.com, seem to offer encouragement for the Bills:

"“At the end of the day, I want to win. I was talking with Coach (Charlie) Weis earlier and he made it clear, ‘Hey, go where you can win.’ That’s exactly what the plan is.”"

The Bills can be counted among those teams primed to contend in 2018. They have all the elements in place which would theoretically catch Cousins’ attention.

Unfortunately for the Bills, the 2016 Pro Bowler apparently has another team in mind. According to Paul Allen of KFAN Minneapolis, a source has told him the Minnesota Vikings are “number one with a bullet” on Cousins’ list.

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Teams reportedly interested in Cousins, include the Denver Broncos, Jacksonville Jaguars, Arizona Cardinals and New York Jets. Of those, the Broncos and Jaguars will surely be next in line behind the Vikings, in terms of going to a situation where you can win right away.

Even if the 2012 fourth round draft pick did seriously consider joining the Buffalo Bills, there is another factor in play – money. As per Nick Veronica of The Buffalo News, Cousins is expected to be too expensive for the Bills to afford.

Even allowing for Weis’ additional advice to not just go to whoever offers the most money, Cousins can still expect a handsome pay-day. The number of teams interested in him will more than likely result in a bidding war for his services. (Projections see him earning as much as $30 million per season.)

Ultimately, the Buffalo Bills have to perform their due diligence and at least reach out to Cousins for a discussion. However, the likelihood is they will need to look elsewhere to find their next quarterback, especially if they really do intend to move on from Taylor.

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How confident are you in the Bills’ chances of signing Cousins? Is there someone else you’d prefer they go for? Or would you like the team to give Taylor another chance? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.