Kirk Cousins is going to be playing elsewhere in 2026. I know that, you know that, he knows that, and the Falcons know that. It doesn\u2019t have to be a messy divorce, as it would have been after he was benched in 2024, but from a performance and contract standpoint, there\u2019s very little sense in Cousins returning next year.<\/p>\n
Where cutting Cousins previously would have left the Falcons with about $25 million in dead money in 2026 and $12.5 million in 2027, they\u2019ll now have to carry about those same totals\u2026but will have more money to work with in the here and now, per Over The Cap, given that his actual salary for 2026 just plummeted all the way down to $2.1 million. That means cutting him with a post-June 1 designation before the March 13 date where his guarantee will vest for a whopping $67.9 million in 2027. It will only save $2.1 million against the cap in 2026 once that cut happens, but gives the Falcons money to make a splash or two in the first couple of days of free agency, and saves them a staggering $77.9 million against the cap in 2027.<\/p>\n
Even if those numbers turn out to be a bit different when they\u2019re made official, the play here is fairly obvious: Have room to breathe as you look to potentially re-sign free agents like Kyle Pitts and David Onyemata, attract a couple of free agents in the early days of free agency, and then save a ton of money against next year\u2019s cap as you look to significantly re-tool the roster. Cousins gets to leave\u2014while still getting paid big bucks\u2014and find his next starting opportunity, assuming one exists, and the Falcons get enough cap flexibility to better absorb the inevitable dead money. Cousins agreed to this because it doesn\u2019t impact his compensation but does make life a little easier for Atlanta, which is a solid thing to do, while still getting him out of here where he can chase a more guaranteed role and another big payday.<\/p>\n
The deal will obviously go down as a disaster, even if Cousins\u2019 play was more of a mixed bag. The Falcons went 12-10 in Cousins\u2019 22 starts with the team, with the highly-paid quarterback throwing for 28 touchdowns, 21 interceptions, and 5,229 yards in that span. He was lights out for a handful of games against Tampa Bay, solid early in the 2024 season and late in the 2025 season, and terrible for a stretch in 2024 where he as injured and turning the ball over at an alarming rate; that got him benched for Michael Penix Jr. The team\u2019s dreams of starting him for two seasons and handing the reins over to Penix never materialized, and for a variety of reasons performance, opportunity, and injury-related, there was no chance of Cousins ever living up to the contract in Atlanta. The team\u2019s lack of outsized success at quarterback helped get Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot fired.<\/p>\n
This means the Falcons will be shopping for another quarterback to pair with Penix, who is recovering from ACL surgery and may or may not be ready for the start of the 2026 season. The new coaching staff and front office will be responsible for figuring out who that quarterback will be.<\/p>\n
The move won\u2019t be official for a little bit, but we\u2019ve likely seen the last of Cousins as a Falcon. We\u2019ll wish him well wherever he lands, and hope the new Falcons general manager can put the team\u2019s new cap space to good use soon enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kirk Cousins is going to be playing elsewhere in 2026. I know that, you know that, he knows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,79029,2591,2554,224,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-661289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons-analysis","11":"tag-atlanta-falcons-news","12":"tag-atlantafalcons","13":"tag-falcons","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115854241061267944","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}