LOVERRO: Kirk Cousins’ game of tag pays off for him, but will it for Redskins?

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Kirk Cousins played Little League baseball. His father, Don Cousins, was his coach.

I wonder if he, like when I grew up in Little League, had “Tag Days” to raise money for teams?

Did a young Cousins stand outside the Piggly Wiggly, wearing his baseball uniform, stopping customers as they entered the store and asked them if they wanted to buy a tag?

One thing I’m sure of: No one ever forked over $20 million to young Kirk Cousins for a tag like the Washington Redskins did.

On Tuesday, the Redskins agreed to pay nearly $20 million for the right to tag Cousins as their franchise quarterback. Now that’s a “Tag Day.”

There’s nothing Little League about the Redskins’ $19.95 million franchise tag deal for Cousins. It may have seemed Little League when, according to reports, the team first offered to sign Cousins to a long-term contract at a rate of around $12 million a year — $4 million less than the $16 million option the team agreed to pay the soon-departed Robert Griffin III last year if he was on the roster for the 2016 season.

That may have seemed a little insulting — if it is possible for $12 million a year to be insulting. But Cousins and his agent, Mike McCartney, let the team know that this is the big leagues, fellas. We’re not standing outside a Piggly Wiggly raising money for uniforms.

Cousins is just the fifth quarterback since 2007 to get the franchise tag — either the exclusive or, as in Cousins’ case, the non-exclusive variety, which meant that any other team that wanted to sign Cousins would have had to hand two first-round picks to Washington as compensation.

Matt Cassel received the non-exclusive franchise tag from the New England Patriots in 2009. Peyton Manning and Michael Vick received the exclusive franchise tag from the Indianapolis Colts and the Philadelphia Eagles in 2011.

The last quarterback to be franchise tagged was Drew Brees by the New Orleans Saints in 2012 – and he wasn’t real happy with it. As it turned out, he filed a grievance over the designation because his former team, the San Diego Chargers, had already placed the tag on Brees in 2005 after his rookie contract expired. The issue for Brees was to prevent the Saints from franchising him three times if they so chose. He won, and several months later, the Saints agreed to a five-year, $100 million contract extension.

Cousins didn’t have any such issues. In fact, he was probably on the phone immediately asking, “Where do I sign?” He did just that on Thursday, posting a picture of him signing the one-year contract offer on his Twitter account.

It is rare air for the Redskins to agree to a franchise tag worth around $20 million for one season. The last few times the Redskins decided a player was their “franchise” player — too valuable to risk walking away — they didn’t exactly hit a home run.

Washington gave the franchise tag to tight end Fred Davis — the highlight of the confused tight end’s career — in 2012, paying him $5.4 million, even though he had been suspended the last four games of the previous season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. He had finished second on the team with 59 catches and 796 yards, but no one ever really thought Sleepy Davis was a “franchise” player from the early days in his rookie training camp when he overslept.

Then there was Brian Orakpo, who thought he was the “franchise,” but only in his mind and that of the genius who drafted him, Vinny Cerrato — who couldn’t even pronounce Orakpo’s name when he picked him in the first round in 2009.

Orakpo was a franchise player — when the franchise the Redskins were playing was the Oakland Raiders. Other than that, there was nothing particular special about Orakpo, yet the Redskins placed the franchise tag on the outside linebacker — yes, outside linebacker. That became a point of contention because franchise linebackers got $11 million in 2014, while defensive ends received $13 million. Still, Orakpo signed the tender.

At the time, it was as lukewarm a franchise tag endorsement as a team could make. “We’d like to get him here for as many years as we can, but right now, I wouldn’t mind letting him play out this franchise tag and see what happens,” Redskins coach Jay Gruden said in April 2014. “He’s a talented player. I think he can do a little bit better. We can ask more of him where he could be more productive as far as getting his hand down and rushing more instead of dropping into pass coverage quite so much. We have high hopes for Brian and whether the deal gets done or not, we know he’ll be a big part of our success this season.”

Well, there wasn’t a lot of success in 2014 — a 4-12 record — and Orakpo, after seven games with just a half sack to show for it, missed the rest of the year with a torn pectoral muscle. There was no interest at Redskins Park to get into the Orakpo business long term.

And, don’t forget about the decision to use the tag on Champ Bailey in 2004 — Bailey was traded shortly thereafter — and the Sean Gilbert saga in 1996, when he protested the offer, sat out the entire season and then was tagged again before being signed away by the Carolina Panthers.

If one can use the franchise tag as a measure of the Redskins’ improvement, this time around, they used it on the most important position on the field. It’s clear the Redskins very much want to continue to be in the Cousins business long term.

Does Cousins, though?

There’s a lot for the quarterback to like here in Washington — a coach who believes in him and runs an offense well-suited for him, and offensive weapons that helped Cousins set franchise passing records in 2015. Now that sounds like a franchise player.

But Cousins may hold some resentments for the way he was treated before he was anointed the starter by Gruden before last season — resentments about the preferential treatment Griffin received. It may have left a bitter taste in Cousins’ mouth, though I’m sure $20 million will serve as excellent mouthwash.

They have until July 15 to sign a long-term contract and finally have a franchise player at the franchise position for the future — perhaps for a franchise finally going in the right direction.

⦁ Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.