Kirk Cousins needs to take a seat on the bench and count his cash.
Sure, that’s counterintuitive for a competitive, 36-year-old quarterback whose clock is ticking to, well, bolster his resume with (maybe) a second career playoff victory.
But facts are facts. A year ago, the Atlanta Falcons christened the NFL’s free agency market by signing Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract that guaranteed a whopping $100 million. In stripping Cousins of the starting job that now belongs to Michael Penix, Jr., the Falcons are still on the hook for all that money.
Yet they don’t owe him any special favors.
Never mind that Cousins met with Falcons owner Arthur Blank last week and apparently tried to lay the tracks for a ticket out of town.
The answer should be not here, not now. Not for what he’s already cost.
Memo to Falcons: Do what’s best for your team.
Barring a release or a trade, Cousins will become the most expensive backup quarterback in NFL history. That sounds less stunning when you consider in these times, with another record salary cap ($279.2 million), pretty much everything is the most.
Unless Falcons GM Terry Fontenot can get some crazy return in a trade package (yeah, right, at 3 million-to-1 odds), it makes more sense for them to hang on to the demoted quarterback for another year than to cut bait. That’s what’s best for the Falcons right now, even when considering results that saw Cousins tie for the league lead with 16 interceptions in 2024. It’s NFL Moneyball, silly.
Cousins – who faded as last season progressed with less-than-transparent shoulder and elbow injuries in the mix — is already guaranteed $27.5 million for the 2025 season. And if he’s still on the roster at the beginning of next week, he’s due another $10 million. Last year, he was paid $62.5 million. There’s your $100 mil.
If they part ways now with Cousins, they can save $10 million – and count $90 million for one stinking season.
So, $90M for one year or $100M for two years?
With the latter option, at least coach Raheem Morris & Co. will have a layer of insurance for a year against a Penix injury.
Besides, they already made the mistake of overpaying for an aging quarterback with limited mobility, and one coming off a torn Achilles tendon. That money has already been spent. So, the Falcons need to, well, learn from the exchange.
The issue with Cousins hardly compares with the case of Grady Jarrett, the veteran D-tackle who was cut by the Falcons on Monday. Jarrett was entering the final year of a three-year deal that averaged nearly $17 million per year. They’ll take a $4.125 million cap hit for the cut. Maybe if they weren’t so over-invested in Cousins, they wouldn’t had to cut their popular defensive leader. But they were.
Cousins, meanwhile, counts for about 15% against the Falcons’ cap ledger, according to Spotrac.com, while Penix counts for less than 2%. If there’s ever a time to have an expensive backup, it’s while the starting QB is playing on a rookie contract. It’s not like the Falcons can just flip the Cousins money to Penix.
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Still, Cousins, who threw his 16 picks in 14 games (Baker Mayfield, meanwhile, threw his 16 INTs in 17 games and led the Bucs to another NFC South crown), knows there’s still a market for him as a potential starter or even a bridge quarterback. Look at Cleveland, Tennessee, Seattle, Indianapolis and New Orleans as possibilities. With the Falcons’ blessing, Cousins’ crafty agent, Mike McCartney, could surely swing some sort of deal. The Browns, saddled with the Deshaun Watson guaranteed cash ($230 million), would likely salivate for a chance to land Cousins for some basement-bargain price where the Falcons pay the bulk of the contract, ala the break the Steelers got last year when Denver was willing to pay big in ridding themselves of Wilson.
It’s just too bad for Cousins that it doesn’t make sense for the Falcons.
No need for pity. Remember, no one has worked the NFL market over the past decade like Cousins, who has made more than $400 million since his rookie deal paid all of $643,000 over his first four seasons.
He was franchise-tagged twice by Washington (totaling nearly $44 million), landed a fully-guaranteed, three-year, $84 million deal from the Vikings. He re-upped twice over three years in Minnesota ($66 million, $35 million). Then he got his most valuable contract yet from the Falcons, months after tearing at Achilles tendon.
Along the way, Cousins has won just one playoff game in his career and earned a reputation for being magnificently inconsistent.
The Falcons, desperate to become a contender, went with fool’s gold. They thought they were getting a difference-maker and it turned out they missed the playoffs (again) and couldn’t even get a full season from Cousins before turning to Penix.
Now it’s time to grin and bear it with Cousins. And time for Cousins to do likewise.
If not, it would go completely against the grain of his rep. Cousins doesn’t strike me as the type who would create a locker room distraction while serving as Penix’s backup. He’d surely have to swallow some more pride in being the good teammate and ready-in-case-of-emergency backup. But who knows? Maybe he handles it differently this time, having to take a back seat to a young quarterback while his career clock ticks.
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Then again, at this point – and with more than $400 million already earned – it’s not about the money. Maybe it’s about feeling entitled to have another shot, ASAP. Certainly, aging QBs Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson can relate.
It’s striking, though, that Cousins’ deal with the Falcons included a no-trade clause. And now he wants the chance to trade places.
No, this Atlanta saga has not worked out. Shortly after the Cousins signing, the NFL opened an investigation into tampering, which spun out of the quarterback casually mentioning during his introductory press conference that he talked to Falcons staff members before the free agency period officially. Combined with apparent violations that involved fellow free agent signees Darnell Mooney and Charlie Woerner, it wound up costing Atlanta a fifth-round pick and $250,000 fine, on top of a $50,000 fine for Fontenot.
Then came the shocking move to draft Penix with the eighth pick overall, which Cousins didn’t know until the Falcons were on the clock. Months later, as Cousins fizzled, the Falcons worked the succession plan sooner than first envisioned.
A few weeks ago, Cousins maintained that he played with shoulder and elbow injuries last season. Funny, though, he was listed on the injury report just once, which is probably why Morris publicly pushed back on the quarterback’s claim – which would also subject the Falcons to more NFL scrutiny related to Cousins, this time linked to the injury policy.
Yes, it’s been a mess. And one way or another, it’s not over yet.
Follow Jarrett Bell on social media: @JarrettBell
