Michael Penix Jr.

DECEMBER 19: To little surprise, Kendall’s colleague Jeff Howe writes a Cousins trade should not be expected this offseason. If a parting of ways is to take place, a release represents the logical path from Atlanta’s perspective. With plenty of uncertainty on the sidelines and in the front office, though, Cousins’ future remains unclear.

DECEMBER 18: With the goal of establishing a long-term plan at quarterback, the Falcons made multiple aggressive moves to bolster the position after the 2023 season. Their first bold strike came when they signed veteran Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180MM pact with $100MM in guarantees in March 2024.

With Cousins in the fold on a mega-deal, there was no expectation the Falcons would immediately use a high pick on a passer in that spring’s draft. They stunningly did just that in selecting former Indiana Hoosier and Washington Husky Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall.

Despite Penix’s presence, Cousins entered 2024 as the Falcons’ unquestioned QB1. Although he signed with Atlanta after prolific runs in Washington and Minnesota, Cousins’ Vikings tenure ended with a torn Achilles in Week 8 of 2023. Over two years since suffering that injury, he hasn’t regained his old form.

Cousins bounced back from his Achilles tear to start the Falcons’ first 14 games last season. He posted mediocre-at-best numbers and led the team to a middling 7-7 record, though, and head coach Raheem Morris benched Cousins for Penix ahead of Week 16. Although the Falcons lost two of three under Penix and missed the playoffs for the seventh straight year, he showed enough to remain the starter heading into 2025.

With Penix taking over, Cousins was interested in a change of scenery in the offseason. Nothing came together on that front, leaving Cousins as a ridiculously expensive backup.

As was the case with Cousins in 2024, Penix didn’t look like the answer this year. His season ended with a partially torn ACL in a Week 11 loss to the Panthers. The Falcons, 3-7 at that point, turned back to Cousins to close out a dud of a campaign. The 37-year-old has put together a couple of strong performances and a pair of clunkers in his return to a starting role. Cousins turned back the clock in a Week 15 win over the Buccaneers, completing 30 of 44 passes for 373 yards and three touchdowns.

Now 5-9, the Falcons are guaranteed to miss the playoffs again. Owner Arthur Blank will spend the next three weeks evaluating Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot. They aren’t locks to return next year. Neither is Cousins, whose contract remains an albatross.

There are still two years left on Cousins’ deal, but the four-time Pro Bowler has the mentality of a soon-to-be free agent. Cousins said Wednesday that he feels as if he’s on an “expiring contract,” per Josh Kendall of The Athletic.

With an untenable $57.5MM cap hit in each of the next two seasons, it’s logical for Cousins to approach it that way. Designating Cousins as a post-June 1 release would enable the Falcons to spread out $35MM in dead cap over the next two seasons, Kendall notes. While an offseason split seems likely, Morris isn’t closing the door yet.

“Everything is on the table,” Morris said in regards to Cousins’ future. He later added: “We planned on the amount of years we put in his contract and hopefully potentially more. We will all sit down at the end of the season and have those discussions and talk about those things.”

Considering Penix may not be ready at the start of 2026, ditching Cousins would add to the Falcons’ questions under center. Morris said he still views Penix as the “quarterback of the future,” but his so-so performance in the pros and long-running history of serious injuries dating back to college don’t inspire confidence.

Whether it’s Cousins or someone else, the Falcons will have to line up a capable insurance policy at the position for next year. With Morris and Fontenot potentially on the outs, it’s possible a new regime will decide Cousins’ fate.

OCTOBER 26: Penix has a “real chance” to be back in the starting lineup when the Falcons take on the Patriots in Week 9, per Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network. If today’s game against Miami were a playoff contest, Rapoport says Penix may be playing.

OCTOBER 25, 9:44pm: Cousins will indeed start tomorrow, Schefter reports in a follow-up. It will mark his first opportunity of the season to handle starting duties since Penix overtook him on the depth chart late in 2024.

2:40pm: Veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins hasn’t made a start since the Falcons benched him for then-rookie Michael Penix Jr. in mid-December last season. Penix remains Atlanta’s QB1, but he’s now dealing with a bone bruise in his left knee. As a result, it’s “highly likely” that Cousins will start Sunday against the 1-6 Dolphins, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports.

Penix, who suffered his injury in a loss to the 49ers last Sunday night, was limited in practice all week and is now listed as questionable. On Friday, Falcons coach Raheem Morris said Cousins had taken “significant” reps this week in practice and more reps later in the week rather than earlier.

“I’m really confident in our backup,” Morris said of Cousins. “We’re going to give [Penix] every opportunity we can give him. The kid is tough. He’s a guy. He’s a stud.”

As a four-time Pro Bowler who’s in the second season of a four-year, $180MM contract (with $100MM guaranteed), Cousins isn’t your typical backup. Cousins signed with the Falcons with the expectation that he’d serve as their unquestioned starter for multiple seasons. However, the team surprisingly used the eighth overall pick on Penix a little over a month later, immediately giving the Falcons an heir apparent.

Despite his exorbitant contract, Cousins fell out of favor in his first season with the Falcons as he struggled to regain form after tearing his Achilles while with the Vikings in 2023. He also dealt with shoulder and elbow injuries last season.

While Cousins wanted out of Atlanta during the offseason, the team wasn’t willing to grant his wish. Although Cousins has come up in trade rumors since then, the Falcons haven’t actively shopped him. They also won’t move him unless an acquiring team takes on the remainder of his fully guaranteed $27.5MM salary for 2026. That makes a trade before the Nov. 4 deadline highly unrealistic, setting up the 37-year-old to ride out the season in Atlanta.

For his part, Penix hasn’t come out of the gates quickly since he took over for Cousins. The Falcons are 4-5 in his starts, including 3-3 this season. The 25-year-old lefty has completed 61% of passes for 1,409 yards, five touchdowns, and three interceptions in 2025. His 47.7 QBR ranks 22nd in the NFL, while advanced metrics from Pro Football Focus indicate that he has actually regressed since last year. Penix’s percentage of big-time throws, average depth of target, and turnover-worthy plays have all gone in the wrong direction.

With Morris regarding Penix as a “stud,” Cousins may not have a chance to reclaim the starting job even if fills in and plays well. However, it will be intriguing to see if a successful Cousins start leads to a QB controversy. The Falcons are second in total defense and seventh in total offense, but they rank 28th in points per game under Penix and are tied for the league’s second-worst red zone touchdown percentage. They’re sitting in 11th place in the NFC as a result.

Connor Byrne contributed to this post. 

Last March, the Falcons’ decision to sign Kirk Cousins seemed to put to rest questions about their plans at the quarterback spot over the intermediate future. The following month, however, Atlanta selected Michael Penix Jr. in the first round of the draft.

It was reported in the immediate aftermath of that move Cousins was caught off guard by the Penix selection. Differing from the Vikings, the Falcons guaranteed the first two years of the 36-year-old’s contract, a key factor in his decision to leave Minnesota after six years there. In the end, both teams made Day 1 investments under center, with the Vikings selecting J.J. McCarthy two spots after Penix. Both are positioned to operate as starters in 2025.

Cousins initially declined to offer a firm answer when asked last year if knowing about the eventual Penix selection would have altered his approach to free agency. The four-time Pro Bowler is one of three signal-callers showcased in the 2025 edition of Netflix’s Quarterback documentary series, however. That has allowed Cousins to reflect on how things played out last spring, and his latest remarks on the situation make it clear he would have likely handled things differently had he known a first-round QB was in the Falcons’ plans.

“It felt like I had been a little bit misled or certainly if I had had the information around free agency, it would have affected my decision,” Cousins said (via The Athletic’s Josh Kendall) when speaking about the Penix selection. “I had no reason to leave Minnesota, as much as we loved it there, if both teams were drafting a quarterback high.”

The Vikings were willing to retain Cousins for 2025, but the team preferred to take a year-to-year approach knowing they were in position to draft his successor. Sam Darnold signed a one-year deal and enjoyed a productive campaign in Minnesota before departing in free agency this March. That leaves McCarthy – who was sidelined for his entire rookie campaign due to meniscus surgery – in position to handle QB1 duties this season and beyond.

Coming off an Achilles tear, Cousins worked as Atlanta’s starter through the beginning of the 2024 campaign. While battling shoulder and ankle injuries, his play took a turn for the worse until Penix was inserted into the lineup. The 25-year-old enters the coming season atop the Falcons’ depth chart, but an offseason filled with speculation about a Cousins trade or release has ultimately not resulted in a parting of ways.

Cousins is in a better spot health-wise than he was at the time of his benching, but without any starting gigs available at this point he is in line to remain in Atlanta. An injury during training camp could change the situation, but for now the Falcons are set to retain him as a backup (as they professed a willingness for all spring) carrying a $40MM cap hit. That situation is of course partly by choice on Cousins’ part after he elected not to waive his no-trade clause prior to the draft to avoid a repeat of last year’s situation.

Cousins is owed a $27.5MM base salary this season, and a $10MM roster bonus for next year has already vested. That financial barrier prevented a trade from taking place over the past few months and it will remain challenging for interested teams to swing a deal if Atlanta declines to retain any money. As a result, Cousins is destined to remain with the Falcons for at least one more year before a parting of ways becomes feasible and the opportunity will present itself to move past this chapter of his career.

Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr. will make the first start of his professional career today following Atlanta’s momentous (but obvious) decision to bench veteran Kirk Cousins in favor of the rookie passer. While Cousins — who had signed a four-year, $180MM deal this offseason to help lead the club on a championship run — was obviously given a long leash, the Falcons believed Penix was ready to take the reins from the jump.

As SI.com’s Albert Breer said during an interview on last week’s TNF Tonight program, Atlanta would have been comfortable starting Penix in Week 1 if necessary (video link). The Washington standout played collegiately for six years, and even when Cousins was at the top of the depth chart, Penix was getting about 10 first-team reps per week while seeing plenty of action with the scout team.

Ian Rapoport of NFL.com adds further context, writing that Penix had the same listening device in his helmet as Cousins during practice and would watch film of what Cousins did and then go through it mentally himself before running the same plays with the club’s young receivers. Rapoport also noted that, each practice, there was a competitive period in which Penix would have the opportunity to run the Falcons’ plays instead of scout-team plays. Those opportunities could be the same first-team reps that Breer referenced, but in any event, Atlanta has long believed that Penix is physically and mentally prepared to assume QB1 duties.

Of course, his arm strength and running ability should also open up the playbook. Breer observes that Cousins hurt his shoulder and elbow during a Week 10 loss to the Saints, and that the veteran signal-caller had not been the same since. Indeed, prior to that New Orleans contest, Cousins was coming off a two-game stretch in which he threw for seven TDs and no interceptions while posting QB ratings of 145.9 and 144.8. But in the next five games, he threw just one touchdown against nine interceptions, and his physical ailments limited the Falcons from a play-calling standpoint.

There will be no such limitation with Penix at the controls, and the expectation is that Cousins will be released in the offseason. Rapoport acknowledges that a release is generally viewed as the most likely outcome, but he does leave open the possibility that the Falcons could retain Cousins as a high-end backup/insurance policy since they are obligated to pay his fully-guaranteed $27.5MM 2025 salary anyway (and since Penix will still be on his affordable rookie deal).

The bigger issue, at least from a financial perspective, would be the $10MM roster bonus for 2026 that locks in if Cousins is still on the roster on the fifth day of the 2025 league year in March. Still, a Cousins return remains on the table and is more plausible than a trade. The four-time Pro Bowler has a full no-trade clause, and since he is much more valuable to another team as a free agent who could be had for a veteran minimum deal than a trade candidate, he is not expected to waive the NTC (his situation is similar to Russell Wilson’s, who was able to sign with the Steelers for the veteran minimum following his Broncos release this offseason since Denver was on the hook for his 2024 pay).

Cousins may, however, contemplate retirement. He will turn 37 before the 2025 season begins, and Rapoport says Cousins is expected to take a month or so after the current campaign is over to consider his playing future. He would be walking away from a large sum of money if he were to call it a career, but the master of negotiation has already earned just shy of $300MM from his NFL contracts.