The Falcons and Kirk Cousins saga continues! With his $10 million roster bonus now fully guaranteed for 2025, the two sides seem to be in limbo, but we have an update on the situation from Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated.
“If, say, Rodgers picks the Steelers this week, I’d expect that the Giants and Cleveland Browns would have at least some interest in making a move for the Atlanta Falcons’ very pricey backup. Ditto for the Steelers if they strike out,” the NFL insider wrote.
The number of landing spots for Cousins is dwindling, and when Aaron Rodgers eventually signs, that will take another team off the board for the Falcons. Breer doesn’t even mention the possibility that an interested team may prefer signing Russell Wilson rather than trading for Cousins. But there’s another potential roadblock, as Breer points out.
“Why would Cousins block a trade to a place where he can start? My understanding it would be chiefly to avoid the situation he found himself in last April when he was blindsided by Atlanta’s decision to take Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth pick. And that could be where the draft position of the aforementioned teams comes into play.
Rather than taking anyone’s word for it, Cousins has already signaled to teams that he would likely want to wait to see what happens over draft weekend before accepting a trade. In a way, that should also work for the teams, allowing them to go through a full draft process—and make decisions on guys such as Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders and Ole Miss’s Jaxson Dart independent of Cousins’s destination,” Breer continued.
Kirk Cousins has learned his lesson. Why would he (or an acquiring team) sign off on a trade before the NFL Draft? Fool me once, shame on me… fool me twice? Well, that won’t happen with Cousins. So Falcons fans shouldn’t expect anything to come to fruition until after next month’s draft. But that’s hardly the only issue.
“The other issue here is that Falcons owner Arthur Blank really doesn’t want to pay $90 million, or close to it, for a single year of Cousins. That will affect how much of Cousins’s $27.5 million for 2025 the Falcons are willing to take on to facilitate a trade and essentially buy a draft pick back from the team acquiring Cousins,” he continued.
The Falcons “buying” a pick seems to be the only way they’re going to get any draft compensation, but clearly, Blank and the organization aren’t keen on eating too much of the salary. However, if a team with a lot of draft capital is interested, perhaps Atlanta would be willing to take on more of Cousins’ salary.
There are a lot of moving parts in this situation, but one takeaway Falcons fans can sit on is that nothing is going to happen until after the NFL Draft.
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Photographer: Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire
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