Costless agent DeSean Jackson chose the Redskins and he signed extremely quickly. While Jackson no doubt received a substantial contract ($24 million over three years with $16 million guaranteed) he would have likely gotten more from teams such as the Raiders and Browns, especially as the NFL draft approached.

Jackson was likely motivated to sign with the Redskins for three reasons:

  • Revenge: He gets to face the Eagles twice a year now.
  • Chemistry: The Redskins had the best QBand offense available for him (The 49ers’ interest was lukewarm at best, and Jackson gets a talented young QB looking for deep strike targets. Plus,Jay Gruden knows how to use WRs well.
  • Good Business Sense: Jackson will hit costless agency again before turning 30 if the Redskins don't give him a massive contract extension.

How will Jackson fit in the Gruden offense? While he doesn’t have AJ Green’s physical gifts, he’s a better deep strike weapon than Green for that offense. He’ll be used primarily on deep and medium routes, but with Andre Roberts also signed to play the Z(slot) for Gruden, Jackson won’t be asked to go short or medium nearly as much. Garcon will be the Y/flanker in the offense and will be the primary red zone target. In greater detail, expect to see a lot of this: DeSean Jackson running post and post-corner routes on the outside next to Andre Roberts (who will run a lot of crossing routes) and Roy Helu Jr (or another RB) running delay flare routes directly behind where Jackson is, so as to take advantage of the coverage following Jackson deep. The biggest loser, fantasy and production-wise, from this move is TE Jordan Reed. His targets will go to Roberts and Garcon more now, and he’ll be asked to block more often than he was expecting. It wouldn’t be shocking if the Redskins invest in a pass blocking TE to split playing time with Reed, since he's more of an H-Back than an in-line TE.

One problem that the Redskins will encounter with Jackson is what the Eagles ultimately got sick of: Jackson’s constant desire for a better contract. If Jackson has a big year with the Redskins, he’ll ask for a new deal by January 2015, and the Redskins probably will give a slightly better contract to him if they add another year to it. The problems will start when Jackson wants to do this after every year or two. The Redskins probably won’t tolerate this for long (as least as long as Bruce Allen is the GM) and they’ll let him walk rather than pay him, especially with Robert Griffin III and Trent Williams coming up for contracts soon.

As exciting as this move is for the Redskins and their fans, the rebuild isn’t near completion. They still have four question marks on the offensive line (everything right of Left tackle), but do have some answers for those questions (Mike McGlynn, Adam Gettis, Shawn Lauvao, etc). They need a starting caliber right tackle and should take that player with their pick high in the 2nd round. They still have an expensive wreck of a defense that’s counting on a schematic switch to a one gap 3-4 which could suddenly make Orakpo and Kerrigan into superstars, but this won’t change until Jim Haslett is fired.

The real story for Redskins fans isn’t that they signed a quasi-superstar WR in Jackson for an under market price. Nor is it that they made this move at the expense of the Eagles. The real story of this move, and the best thing if you’re a Redskin fan, is that Bruce Allen is completely in charge of the franchise. If this were a Dan Snyder move, the Redskins would have made a trade for Jackson to keep him from hitting the open market (like Shanahan did with Donovan McNabb)  If they had failed to work out a trade, they would have panicked and given Jackson the 9-11 million a year average (mostly guaranteed) that he was asking for. Bruce Allen played his cards right, counter-leaking rumors in response to Jackson’s camp doing the same throughout Tuesday morning, keeping Joel Segal talking throughout the evening and night. In the end, the Redskins protected themselves with their contract to Jackson. They can dump Jackson in a year if he turns out to be more trouble than he’s worth for little dead cap money (and still have Roberts and Garcon under contract), or they can expand his deal to lock him in long term without dumping a lot of new money into their cap situation. This development, which had been shown by the reserve and caution of the early part of the Redskins’ costless agency campaign, should show that a new wind is blowing out of Ashburn.