Falcons General Manager Terry Fontenot said in January that the team is comfortable with Kirk Cousins as their backup quarterback for the 2025 season and he said the same thing from the Scouting Combine in Indianapolis on Tuesday.
Cousins has a guaranteed salary of $27.5 million for the coming season and a no-trade clause that could require the Falcons to cut him before $10 million of his 2026 compensation becomes fully guaranteed early in the new league year. Unless Cousins waives that trade protections and the Falcons find a willing trade partner, that makes it hard for the Falcons to take a different stance at this point in the offseason and Fontenot focused on Cousins adapting well after being benched last season.
“Kirk handled that really well at the end of the season,” Fontenot said. “Obviously, Kirk’s a really talented player, he’s a great man, all those things. Again, he handled that role well at the end of the season.”
Cousins said recently that he’s focused on getting healthy and mentioned right shoulder and elbow injuries that popped up in Week 10. Fontenot noted that Cousins was on the injury report in Week 11 and said the team had no word on continued injury issues while reiterating that the decision to make Michael Penix the starter was a football one.
Any future decisions about Cousins will have some financial ramifications along with the football ones, but, for now, the Falcons insist the status quo will remain in place.
