How Cutting Kirk Cousins After Benching Would Affect Falcons' Salary Cap

What would it look like for Atlanta to get out of the veteran quarterback's expensive contract?

Cousins registered an 88.6 passer rating in 14 games this season. / Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

It was only a matter of time.

One day after a lackluster performance in the Atlanta Falcons' ugly 15–9 victory over the two-win Las Vegas Raiders, coach Raheem Morris announced Tuesday night that the organization is moving on from Kirk Cousins as its starting quarterback.

Rookie Michael Penix Jr. will start under center for Atlanta against the New York Giants on Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Cousins will serve as a backup for the first time since 2014.

Cousins is still in the first season of the four-year deal worth $180 million he signed in free agency back in March. If everything goes well with Penix at the helm, the Falcons will likely explore ways to cut ties with Cousins in the offseason. After all, no team wants to pay a veteran $45 million per year to sit on the sidelines.

Per Spotrac, if the Falcons cut Cousins before June 1, they would take on $65 million in dead money on the 2025 salary cap. If they cut him after June 1, that $65 million would be split over the next two years—$40 million of dead money in 2025 and $25 million in '26.

It's far from ideal for Atlanta, which realistically hoped Cousins would be the starting quarterback for at least the next two seasons. But it's been done before. The Broncos are facing $85 million in total dead money across 2024 and '25 after cutting Russell Wilson in March.

Of course, cutting Cousins isn't the Falcons' only option if they decide to move on. They could try to find a trade partner to move on from the 36-year-old quarterback, although it might be tough after his rough 2024 showing. Cousins also has a no-trade clause on his deal.

Per Spotrac, if the Falcons traded Cousins away before June 1, they would face $37.5 million in dead cap in 2025 but would save $2.5 million in salary-cap space. If he was traded after June 1, Atlanta would split the dead cap over two seasons—$12.5 million in '25 and $25 million in '26—and save $27.5 million toward the 2025 salary cap.

The Falcons are no stranger to this option, either. They traded quarterback Matt Ryan to the Indianapolis Colts in March 2022 and took a dead-money charge of $40.53 million, which at the time was the largest amount of dead money for any single player in NFL history.

Sure, the Falcons wanted the Cousins experiment to work out. Barring an unprecedented late-season run, it didn't. The future is now at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, but that comes with an expensive price tag on an aging, now-backup quarterback.

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