Kirk Cousins needs to calculate his money while seated on the bench.
Sure, that’s contradictory for a competitive, 36-year-old quarterback whose clock is running to, well, boost his resume with maybe a second career playoff triumph.
Nonetheless, facts are facts. The Atlanta Falcons signed Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract guaranteeing an amazing $100 million, so christening the NFL’s free agency market a year ago. The Falcons are still liable for all that money even though Cousins was deprived of the starting position that now belongs to Michael Penix, Jr.
Still, they owe no particular favors to him.
Never mind that Cousins visited Falcons owner Arthur Blank last week seemingly in an attempt to set the path for a ticket out of town.
Not here, not now is the response that should be used. Not in line with his present expenses.
Memo to Falcons: Act for your team’s greatest advantage.
Cousins will become the most expensive backup quarterback in NFL history barring a release or a trade. Considering these days, with another record salary ceiling ($279.2 million), almost everything is the most, thus that sounds less amazing.
Falcons GM Terry Fontenot should hang on to the demoted quarterback for another year rather than cut bait unless he can get some ridiculous return in a trade deal (yes, right, at 3 million-to- 1 odds). Even with results showing Cousins tying for the league lead with 16 interceptions in 2024, that is what the Falcons now find ideal. NFL Moneyball, weird.
Already assured $27.5 million for the 2025 season is Cousines, who deteriorated as last season continued with less-than-transparent shoulder and elbow problems in the mix. And is due another $10 million should he still be on the team at the start of next week. He received payment of $62.5 million last year. Your $100 mil comes from here.
They can save $10 million if they split ways now with Cousins, and count $90 million for one miserable season.
Hence, $90M for one year or $100M for two years?
At least Coach Raheem Morris & Co. will have a layer of insurance against a Penix injury for a year with the later choice.
Besides, one coming off a torn Achilles tendon and they have paid too much for an elderly quarterback with limited mobility. That money has already been allocated. The Falcons must thus, well, absorb knowledge from the exchange.
The situation with Grady Jarrett, the seasoned D-tackle cut by the Falcons on Monday, scarcely matches the one involving Cousins. Jarrett was starting the last year of a three-year contract averaging around $17 million annually. Their cap loss for the cut will be $4.125 million. Perhaps they would not have to cut their popular defensive captain if they were not so over-invested on Cousins. However, they were.
Penix counts less than 2%; Cousins, meantime, counts for almost 15% against the Falcons’ cap ledger, according to Spotrac.com. There is only one instance where an expensive backup would be justified: the starter quarterback is on a rookie deal. Unlike the Falcons, who could simply turn the Cousins money on to Penix,
Still, Cousins, who threw his 16 picks in 14 games (Baker Mayfield, meantime, tossed his 16 INTs in 17 games and led the Buccaneers to another NFC South crown), knows there is still a market for him as a possible starter or even a bridge quarterback. Consider Cleveland, Tennessee; Seattle, Indianapolis; and New Orleans. With the Falcons’ consent, Mike McCartney, Cousins’ clever agent, could most definitely broker some kind of deal. Saddled with the Deshaun Watson guaranteed cash ($230 million), the Browns would probably salivate for a chance to land Cousins for some basement-bargain price where the Falcons pay most of the contract, ala the break the Steelers got last year Denver was willing to pay big in riding themselves of Wilson.
It’s simply too bad for Cousins that the Falcons don’t make sense.
Not a call to sympathy here. Remember, no one has worked the NFL market over the past ten years like Cousins, who has made more than $400 million since his rookie deal paid all of $643,000 during his first four seasons.
Washington tagged him twice, totalling over $44 million, and the Vikings won a fully guaranteed, three-year, $84 million contract from him. He re-upped twice over three years in Minnesota ($66 million, $35 million). Months after ripping an Achilles tendon, he then obtained his most valuable contract yet from the Falcons.
Cousins has had one playoff game under his belt thus far in his career and is known for being rather brilliantly unreliable.
RK NEWS
