Kirk Cousins
The Kirk Cousins situation remains one worth watching. Cousins doesn’t want to be in Atlanta. The Falcons have been resolute in messaging that they’re planning on keeping him on the roster alongside Michael Penix Jr. And a deadline is coming.
That deadline is St. Patrick’s Day, when $10 million of Cousins’s money for 2026 vests.
Simply put, if the Falcons truly plan on having Cousins around in 2025, having him on the roster on March 17 would prove it. Because at that point, not only are the Falcons on the hook for it, it also would make what’s already unlikely, pulling off a trade to get something back for him, even more difficult. And even before we get there, free agency starts a week before that, so holding him on the roster through that week would make it tougher for him to find another starting job, since those will be filling up over that time.
It's a tough situation for everyone. On Cousins’s end, it’s simple—he wants to go start somewhere else. For Atlanta, it’s more complicated. Their logic is saying they want to keep him, which is, essentially, saying we’d rather pay $100 million for two years of Cousins, rather than just chalk $90 million for 2024 as a sunk cost on a failed signing makes some sense. But there’s also what’s best for Penix to consider, and it might not be great for a young quarterback to have the accomplished veteran he replaced around.
Either way, I think we’ll hear more about this one this week. Because if Cousins feels like he and his camp have to start getting pushy, now’s the time to do it.
