Matthew Stafford: 'Cousins option' wasn't on table Published: Aug 29, 2017 at 08:25 AM During a Tuesday news conference, both the and painted a picture of friendly Tavierre Thomas Jersey contract negotiations before agreeing on a five-year, $135 million extension . So amenable were talks that it doesn't sound like Stafford or his agents gave too much thought to what is now being called the * option. * Cousins, who has twice signed the franchise tag in Washington, committed to play out his two one-year deals while using the guaranteed raises to dramatically increase his bottom-level salary whenever long-term talks are finally broached seriously. If Cousins is franchised again by the in 2018, he would make nearly $35 million next year. "At certain points, at times, everything's in play when you meet with my guys and agent Tom Condon and those guys at CAA, but in the back of my mind, I've always wanted to be here," Stafford told reporters. " Andy Janovich Jersey From the first day I met with my representatives, after I talked with general manager Bob Quinn and those guys in February, that was the first question he asked me and I said, 'Absolutely, I want to be in Detroit.' And you never know if that's always going to work out or not, but that was my wish and intention all the way back then." Stafford became the league's Deshaun Watson Jersey highest-paid player and is also guaranteed roughly 70 percent of the total value. The $27 million per year leapfrogs deals signed by both and over the past few months. While it sounds like there wasn't much to haggle over, Quinn said that both sides made conce sions. Quinn said he was hoping to get a deal done after the first time he and Stafford talked about a contract in the winter, but was willing to talk into the 2017 regular season. Stafford seemed happy it did not come to that. "It was important to finish the deal before the regular season ," Stafford said. "It wasn' Jalen Camp Jersey t something all along I knew was gonna be the case, but as it got into training camp a little bit, I realized that I think we have an extremely talented team and for us to be worried about, or anybody, even myself, about my contract situation to what it was going to be, was going to be a di service to the organization, to our team, to the players in the locker room. So I wanted to Justin Britt Jersey get this thing done and then kind of realized that during training camp." With Stafford's contract in the books, the real fun begins. quarterback , quarterback and quarterback are all rapidly approaching the end of their current deals and could do some serious damage to the quarterback salary market. Stafford can sit back and enjoy being the league's highest-paid player for now. This article has been reproduced in a new format and may be mi sing content or contain faulty links. Please use the Contact Us link in our site footer to report an i sue.