MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK

This is a great line... Ima steal it.

I gotta wonder if the Falcons executives even want Cousins around and may have or want to move on from him? I also wonder when Cousins was stinking the place up, why he didnt work with the coaches and or medical staff and let the team know he wasnt 100%. He says he was 100%, but bends that by saying no one ever is. In my mind his performance while hindered with some ailments was not a 'team' first decision on his part. On the other hand, maybe this year he's healed up even more and might have something left to contribute that would out-way the rawness that Penix might bring... always a dilemma and never a dull moment.

 

The whole thing about him being banged up raises a LOT of issues. He didn't tell reporters that he was banged up, even when they point blank asked him. And it's pretty much 100% certain the team knew as well. Did they do anything wrong by not reporting it themselves? Well, he was healthy enough to practice fully and healthy enough to play, so there was no situation that would require anything to be listed on the injury report.

And he still played well enough that for the most part, as fans we couldn't see that there was anything physically wrong. What I saw was that he'd make a bad throw and then get really tentative. Or at least it looked like that was the issue - that he just got spooked. But now it's sounding like he checked down repeatedly because he lost confidence in his arm strength, not confidence in his overall ability.

Would any of this be a reason for the coaches / front office to not want him around? I'm dead certain they knew all along, so I'll say no on that one. If they move him, it will be purely because of cap reasons on their end and/or his own wishes to be a starter elsewhere.

The interesting twist with the cap... now that we know what the actual number will be, the Falcons are presumably about $5 million over the mark and will have to make some moves before the start of the new league year. That amount shouldn't be too difficult to massage in through extensions or whatever. No concerns there at all. But it does limit the team's options on what to do with Cousins. If they release him with the post June 1 designation, they don't take the additional hit from accelerated signing bonus... but they still eat his 27.5 million guaranteed salary plus this year's 12.5 million bonus. Nothing gained for this year on the cap AND they are short a quarterback with nothing received in return. To me, that's pointless.

Releasing him without the post June 1 thing doesn't even seem like a possibility. Instead of needing to clear $5 million in cap space, they'd need to clear $30 million as $25 million of prorated signing bonus moves from 2026-2027 up to 2025.

Trading him becomes the only feasible way to get him off the roster, as it clears his salary off the books. They would drop that 27.5 million in salary but take on the extra 25 million dead money from his bonus, giving them a meager 2.5 million in cap savings for this year - not even enough to get them back under the cap at this point. And it creates a pretty significant hole on the roster. So to me the feasibility depends on the terms of the trade.

Or... keep him. And as I threw out there before, that really isn't a completely bat-guano crazy idea - especially considering Atlanta was perfectly willing to have both Cousins and Penix on the roster last year.

Personally, I'm convinced that the original plan was to keep Cousins for two years. The cap structure of his contract absolutely screamed to keep him through 2025 and move him before the 2026 roster bonus comes due. So has that really changed? I'm not so sure about that. It's still the same kazoo...