FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Kirk Cousins finished his 2024 season without making any public comments about what his future might be with the Atlanta Falcons.
The Falcons (8-9) finished their season Sunday with a 44-38 overtime loss to Carolina and held their final team meeting at 1 p.m. Monday. The media’s access to the locker room to speak to players began immediately after that meeting, but Cousins did not return to the locker room.
He might never again.
“Kirk left today, gave me a hug and said he’d talk to me soon,” head coach Raheem Morris said Monday afternoon. “We will make some of those decisions with him. You just never know. That’s the process we will go through now.”
Cousins, a 13-year veteran, last spoke publicly on Dec. 19, the day the Falcons announced they were benching him in favor of rookie Michael Penix Jr., but he did not want to talk about his future then.
“You are kind of one day at a time right now,” he said. “You kind of always are in this league. In the offseason, that’s when conversations happen, but we’re not there yet.”
He did indicate he does not believe his NFL career is finished.
“I didn’t forget how to play quarterback,” he said. “The story is still being written. You just kind of keep going one day at a time, someday look back and have a little bit better ability to tell the story.”
Cousins signed a four-year contract in March that guaranteed him $90 million and had a total potential value of $180 million, making it the highest total-value free-agency deal in NFL history. He will receive a $10 million roster bonus if he’s on the roster on March 17, but that appears increasingly unlikely.
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The Falcons have floated the idea behind the scenes that they could keep both Cousins and Penix during the 2025 season because Penix’s rookie contract gives them financial flexibility, but that would require Cousins to accept a backup role.
Morris made clear Sunday that the Falcons are moving forward with Penix as the starter and are excited about that future.
“We will figure out ways to fix the things we need to fix, but Michael Penix is certainly outstanding,” Morris said. “He’s one of those guys that’s going to play in this league and absolutely dominate as long as we allow him.”
Penix received a four-year, $22.8 million deal as the No. 8 pick in last year’s draft. His 2025 cap hit will be $5.2 million. Cousins, meanwhile, will be expensive for the Falcons no matter where he is playing. If he is released with a pre-June 1 designation, they would have $65 million of dead money on next year’s salary cap. If he’s released with a post-June 1 designation, Atlanta could break that dead cap hit into two chunks — $40 million in 2025 and $25 million in 2026.
If the Falcons can find a trade partner acceptable to Cousins, who has a no-trade clause, they could get his cap hit down to $37.5 million. If Cousins plays for Atlanta, he’ll have a $40 million cap hit next season.
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However and whenever the Cousins-Falcons breakup happens, it will be a disappointing end to a relationship that at one point felt like it could lead to a storybook ending to the veteran’s career. When he held his introductory news conference on March 14, he talked about how he and his wife (Georgia native Julie) had their first date at local landmark Stone Mountain and how he spent many offseason nights sleeping in his in-laws’ basement in a suburb just 25 miles from the team’s practice facility.
“We feel that this is a little bit of a home away from home,” he said.
Cousins started 14 games for the Falcons in 2024. At one point, he had the team 6-3 and two games out front in the NFC South, but he was benched after a five-game stretch in which he threw nine interceptions and one touchdown pass and the Falcons coughed up the division lead.
“He did exactly what he told me he would do, be the best backup quarterback he could be, and that’s where we are at,” Morris said.
(Photo: Dale Zanine / Imagn Images)
