Earlier this week, I took a look at what options were available to the Atlanta Falcons regarding Kirk Cousins. With him now on the bench, the team’s expensive free agent signing could stay, be cut or traded, and it was simply a matter of which path the team wanted to take and allow Cousins ​​to take.

I suggested that Cousins’ contract wasn’t as impossible to trade as it might seem, since the team that signs him would get a relatively affordable amount of guaranteed money while the Falcons gobbled up the rest and the impending quarterback -Market between draft and free The agency looks bleak. Readers certainly suspected that Cousins ​​might not be willing to play since the Falcons unfortunately gave him a no-trade clause despite knowing they wanted to move on from him two to three years into his contract.

Adam Schefter is somewhat clear here, and it sounds like Cousins ​​will indeed not be suitable for a trade. Armed with sources in other front offices and likely information from Cousins’ agents, Schefter suggests that, as I suspected, the Falcons will move on from Cousins ​​before March 17, when a $10 million roster bonus is guaranteed is. He reports that the widespread expectation around the league is that the Falcons will have to cut Cousins ​​and send him to the open market, with a similar situation to Russell Wilson after he was cut by the Broncos.

Executives around the league (and perhaps Cousins’ camp, although they are not named in the article) believe that the way the Falcons handled the quarterback in the spring will make a split inevitable. Cousins ​​was infamously only then told that the Falcons would be drafting Penix, and reports immediately afterward suggested he was unhappy with the team A) choosing his successor and B) not making a decision that would benefit the team would help in 2024.

Of course, as we pointed out all summer and early in the season when Cousins ​​was playing quite well, all Cousins ​​needed to do was quiet the noise and make Penix successful as the starting quarterback. It looks like Atlanta’s selection of Penix would pay off far more than signing Cousins ​​now before he took a snap, because Cousins ​​had quickly become an albatross for this team’s 2024 season .

But it’s hard to blame Cousins, who signed a multi-year deal with lots of guaranteed money, for not jumping up and down for joy when his replacement was immediately drafted And sitting on the bench before the end of his first year of contract. Expecting him to do the Falcons team any favors given that backdrop is probably expecting too much.

Of course, the Falcons aren’t ready to call it a day under any scenario, as an unnamed team official has told Schefter that they could actually keep Cousins ​​given Penix’s modest cap hit. If Cousins ​​is unhappy and wants to start anyway – and all the signs we have right now point to that – that probably won’t happen.

A Falcons official told ESPN Saturday morning that it was too early to determine whether the organization would release Cousins. The official added that Penix’s relatively low 2025 salary cap hit ($5.2 million) gives the Falcons the financial flexibility to potentially retain Cousins.

This all points to a potentially chaotic situation, but we should also keep in mind that unnamed league executives have no reason to do the Falcons a favor, and potentially a big reason to work to create an environment in which the Cousins’ release seems inevitable. The smart money is probably on the Falcons cutting Cousins ​​with a designation after June 1 to reduce their 2025 cap hit – we’re talking $40 million, potentially offset by the salary that a Contract team Cousins ​​gives, compared to $65 million for a contract before the June 1 cut – but a lot can happen between now and March to challenge those assumptions. The problem for Atlanta is that there is no cost-effective scenario here, and the fact that Cousins ​​hasn’t even survived a year of his contract makes this the latest in a long line of quarterback-related fiascos for this football team.

Either way, unless Cousins ​​and the Falcons say a lot of happy words in the coming months, Cousins ​​will likely end up somewhere else in 2025. The Falcons better hope that Penix will be successful in this potentially upcoming scenario.