The Atlanta Falcons made the decision late last season to ride with Michael Penix Jr. as their starting QB moving forward.
The move felt as shocking as when the Falcons made the decision to draft Penix in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Just last offseason, Atlanta gave Kirk Cousins a massive four-year deal worth $180 million.
While Cousins played decent early in the year, he never quite looked like the same player that put up big numbers for the Minnesota Vikings. As the season progressed, Cousins appeared to regress. Ultimately that led to the Falcons turning to Penix as their starter and narrowly missing the playoffs in a critical loss to the Washington Commanders.
It hasn’t been an ideal situation to keep Cousins as the backup in Atlanta, but the Falcons owe him $27.5 million this season, and it’s been almost impossible to find a team willing to absorb his contract. Rumors before the draft stated the Falcons wanted $20 million in salary relief but teams were only offering to take on $10 million.
But turfshowtime.com, a blog that covers the Los Angeles Rams, proposed a potential trade situation that makes a lot of sense as Matthew Stafford’s status remains up in the air as he deals with a lingering back injury.
The Atlanta Falcons have been hanging onto Cousins and his $27 million salary for the entire season because it’s guaranteed money, but also because they’re waiting for a dire situation that forces someone to overpay in a trade. Wouldn’t you know it, the Rams have a potential situation developing at quarterback and the Falcons have two former Sean McVay coaches — Raheem Morris and Zac Robinson — teaching Cousins a playbook that would strongly resemble the one he’d have in L.A..
Cousins has also spoke at length about how important McVay was to his development and success when the two were paired together in Washington at the start of both of their careers.
Even if you think it would be a huge mistake for the Rams to trade for Kirk Cousins, you have to admit that the longer this Stafford situation goes on, the more often we will hear rumors linking L.A. to the only backup in the league who has a winning record with more than 150 career starts.
Kenneth Arthur, who wrote the piece, believes there’s a way to lighten the blow of the salary the Rams would have to absorb that would appeal to the Falcons.
It’s hard to imagine that the Falcons will want anything more than financial relief if a team is willing to trade for Cousins. The team owes him a guaranteed $27.5 million salary, money that comes off of their salary cap if the Rams take the bait.
This also implies that the Rams wouldn’t have to sacrifice any good draft picks — maybe a day three pick swap in 2026 — and would expect Atlanta to give them salary relief on Cousins or take back a bad contract in return.
In other words, the Rams might expect the Falcons to pay $17.5 million of Cousins’ 2025 salary, leaving $10 million. The only really bad contract that L.A. could trade is Colby Parkinson’s, which is $5.25 million.
Maybe the Rams would trade Parkinson to the Falcons for Cousins and pay $15 million of his 2025 salary. The Rams are estimated to have $19.5 million in 2025 cap space right now.
This is a fascinating situation to keep an eye on, especially if the Stafford injury lingers or even worse, the Rams QB is forced to get season-ending surgery. Cousins and McVay make a lot of sense if the two teams can work out a deal.