How Kirk Cousins’ $180M Contract Impacts Falcons’ Salary Cap If QB Is Traded and Cut in 2025 | News, results, highlights, statistics and rumors

After it was announced on Tuesday that Michael Penix Jr. will take over as starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, replacing Kirk Cousins, the next logical question is what the future holds for the veteran quarterback.

And how that will in turn affect the Falcons.

There are three main options. The first, and probably least likely at this point, is that the Falcons simply keep Cousins ​​as insurance for Penix. If the rookie struggles down the stretch this year, that’s certainly a possibility, even if it would mean Cousins’ $40 million cap hit, $27.5 million base salary and the 10- Million dollar roster bonus for 2026 that they would owe him if he were on the roster would have to be absorbed by the fifth day of the 2025 league year.

That’s an expensive backup plan, although the Falcons could cut him at any time after the 2025 season and face a $25 million dead cap hit.

That’s not chump change, but it’s far less dead cap than they would take on if they chose option two, which would be to release him immediately after this season. However, this would come with a prohibitive dead cap amount of $65 million, which would be the second-highest dead cap burden in NFL history, behind only the $85 million in dead cap that the Denver Broncos absorbed after the departure of Russell Wilson.

The Broncos could either take that success in one season or spread it out between 2025-26.