Last Thursday night, Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins helped power the team to a comeback victory over the Buccaneers.
While things looked shaky at times, Cousins ended up having one of his strongest stat lines since joining the Falcons in 2024. He finished the game 30-of-44 passing for 373 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.
Cousins is set to finish the season as Atlanta’s starter, as Michael Penix Jr. underwent reconstructive knee surgery late last month.
Cousins is still under contract with the Falcons through 2027, though he has no more guarantees on his salary after 2026. Should Atlanta need a starter because Penix isn’t ready for the beginning of next season, is Cousins a viable option?
“Everything is on the table,” Falcons head coach Raheem Morris told reporters on Wednesday, via Terrin Waack of the team’s website. “Obviously, we all sit down at the end of the season and we’ll have all those discussions, we’ll talk about all those things. That certainly will be a part of it.
“When we went down the journey of Kirk Cousins, we planned on the amount of years that we put in his contract, and hopefully, we were able to potentially get more. So, we’ll see where that goes and all those types of things. But that’s definitely up for discussion once we get to the end of the season. We know we’ll get Mike back next year. But that’ll definitely be up for discussion.”
The Falcons signed Cousins to a lucrative four-year deal last offseason before drafting Penix at No. 8 overall a month later. Despite playing 14 of 17 games, Cousins finished last season leading the league with 16 interceptions. He completed 66.9 percent of his passes for 3,508 yards with 18 touchdowns.
Morris noted that even as he benched Cousins last year, he never lost belief in the QB.
“Quite honestly, I never though he wasn’t a valuable starting quarterback,” Morris said. “He just didn’t play like that at the end of last year when we needed him to most.”
Cousins is currently in line to have a $57.5 million cap number for 2026 with a $10 million roster bonus due on the fifth day of the league year. We’ll see how the rest of the season and the beginning of the offseason plays out for Cousins’ future with Atlanta.
