The Falcons shocked the entire NFL world when they drafted Michael Penix Jr. with the 8th overall pick around six weeks after giving Kirk Cousins a $180 million free agent contract.
The club surprised their fan base, media pundits, and Cousins himself, who was admittedly taken back by the draft pick. It seemed as if the Falcons kept the veteran quarterback in the dark, but that wasn’t the case, at least according to the club’s owner.
Arthur Blank told Atlanta reporters that Kirk Cousins was made aware during contract negotiations that there was a possibility that the Falcons would draft a quarterback.
Blank noted that Kirk Cousins was advised that there was a possibility of the team drafting a quarterback this year, during contract discussions.
— Adnan Ikic (@SayWhichWay) July 30, 2024
This is a new piece of information in the entire Falcons-Cousins-Penix saga, but what makes it especially interesting is the recent news that the Vikings told Cousins they weren’t going to draft a quarterback if he re-signed with Minnesota.
“I don’t think they were ready to go there yet in March,” Cousins said, via Pro Football Talk. “I think the reality is just that they wanted to give themselves that flexibility. And I remember [coach] Kevin [O’Connell]’s words, which I’m not going to hold them to, were, ‘Hey, if we sign you back, I would think it’s very unlikely that we would draft somebody.’ It was something to that effect. But I also know in the league things change.”
“I just felt it had been — and was going to be — basically one year, one year, one year,” Cousins continued. “I felt like, ‘Yeah, maybe I do want to play in Minnesota another five or six years, but it’s going to be on one-year contracts.’ That’s the plan they’ve chosen that they wanted to walk. I thought, ‘OK, I don’t really want to do that. I’ll do it if it’s my only option.’”
Despite Arthur Blank’s generous contract, Kirk Cousins may indeed just be in Atlanta for one year depending on how the Falcons choose to handle the succession to Michael Penix Jr. He ended up getting the guarantees in years and money that he was looking for from the Falcons, but the result may still be the same.
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Photographer: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire
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