Kirk Cousins is a fiend for preparation, sleeping nine hours a night and spending the remaining 15 hours during the season locked into football.
"I like to prepare," Cousins told the media on Thursday. "I like to cover my bases. And I don't like to be surprised."
So when the Redskins decided to pull the trigger on a trade for Alex Smith on January 30, effectively ending the Cousins Era in Washington, they did right by their former quarterback, even if the move seemed abrupt.
Rather than drag things out until the franchise tag deadline or even into free agency, they let Cousins imagine himself in places other than Washington. It just so happens that at that time, he was in Minneapolis for marketing purposes around the Super Bowl.
"I had about five or six days here. Rented a car and drove out here and drove by Winter Park and drove through Eagan," Cousins said. "I wanted to get a feel for the area and did the best research that I could."
Apparently, he liked what he saw.
"I called [my wife] Julie near the end of the week and I said everything's checking the boxes here," he continued. "The timing of it was such that I think the second day I was here was when the trade was made to show that I was going to be moving on.
"The timing was good for me to start being able to do research here. From there, it was just a process of continuing to gather facts."
Those facts lined up pretty well for Camp Cousins. In the end, he made one trip in free agency, directly back to Minnesota. He was wined and dined by a Whose Who of Vikings brass, coaches and players, and that was all of the convincing he needed to sign the deal.
Those facts are even better: three years, fully-guaranteed at $84 million with no-trade clause and no transition tag provisions. Those are historically significant facts to be gathered.
By pulling the trigger early on the Smith trade, the Redskins helped themselves first and foremost. Team executive Doug Williams confirmed that the Redskins were competing with multiple teams in order to land Smith, and that timing was everything.
But they also helped Cousins and the Vikings by setting them on a collision course that could actually work out for everyone.