Washington Pro Bowl guard Brandon Scherff has played on two consecutive franchise tags and is set to become an unrestricted free agent in March. On Monday, Scherff reiterated his desire to remain in Washington for the remainder of his career.
Like Kirk Cousins before him, Scherff’s desire to remain in Washington is nothing more than lip service.
Washington general manager Martin Mayhew and head coach Ron Rivera met with the media Tuesday for their season-ending press conference and talked in-depth about the future of the WFT.
As expected, Scherff’s name came up.
Mayhew discussed how Scherff is an outstanding player and leader, and those types of players aren’t easy to replace. That’s why Washington did everything in its power, presumably last offseason, to keep Scherff in D.C. for the rest of his career.
“I think our fans should know; we’ve made every effort to get something done,” Mayhew said. “We’ve continued to work on that. Last year we made an offer to be the highest-paid offensive guard in the history of the National Football League. and we’ll keep that dialogue going on and see where things go.”
That certainly changes things.
Most fans presumed the front office lowballed Scherff much like Bruce Allen did when he told the media Washington made Cousins a “record” contract offer in 2017, when, in fact, Allen didn’t reveal the specifics of the proposal.
I tend to side with Mayhew here. Why would he lie? You can criticize Dan Snyder and some of the shenanigans of the Washington organization, but Mayhew doesn’t have a history of saying these types of things for them only to be proven otherwise.
It made sense for Scherff to play on the second franchise tag once it was applied. You can’t blame him. That was around $32 million guaranteed over two years for his position. And then he can sign a multi-year deal worth even more. That’s smart business. Coincidentally enough, Washington can thank Cousins for establishing that path.
Does this mean Scherff wants out of Washington? No, it doesn’t. We are about to find out how strong Scherff’s desire is to remain in Washington.
While Scherff made his fifth Pro Bowl in 2021, he missed six games and hasn’t played every game since 2016.