Kirk Cousins admitted that injuries suffered against the New Orleans Saints derailed his season with the Atlanta Falcons:
Kirk Cousins admitted for the first time today on Good Morning Football that he took a hit during the #Falcons Week 10 game against the Saints and hurt his right shoulder and elbow. That game was the start of Atlanta’s four-game losing streak.
One of the biggest storylines from the 2024 regular season involved the unexpected collapse of the Atlanta Falcons under newly-acquired quarterback Kirk Cousins. Things all went downhill in a midseason game with the New Orleans Saints.
After getting off to a hot start with a 6-3 record, the team suffered a four-game losing streak ultimately derailing their season. Cousins, who was benched late in the year due to poor performance, recently cleared the air about how his struggles down the stretch and how injuries potentially played a role in it.
Cousins, on Good Morning Football specified a hit that he took against the Saints in Week 10 that left both his right shoulder and elbow injured for the following weeks. Coincidentally, the Falcons would lose their remaining four games after their loss to the Saints with Cousins play taking a huge dip. It appears Cousins was injured on a big hit from Saints defensive end Payton Turner, who took advantage of a breakdown in protection to rush the quarterback.
From Weeks 10 to 14, Cousins finished with nine interceptions to only one touchdown in that span, with a total QBR of 34.7. One very rough stretch.
The Falcons front office and coaching staff has made it clear that the plan is to move on from Cousins as their starting quarterback but is willing to keep him on the roster as a backup. This however won’t be likely as Cousins will almost certainly seek a trade to find a home as a potential starter. Something else to watch is whether this results in penalties on the Falcons for misreporting his status on the injury report. Atlanta already lost a draft pick for tampering with Cousins in free agency last year. They could lose another one.
The Saints will see yet another new face at the quarterback position for Atlanta next season. Expect second-year passer Michael Penix Jr. to lead them out of the tunnel in 2025.
The Falcons went into their Week 10 game against the Saints leading the division at 6-3 and looking poised to end the franchise’s six-season playoff drought (now seven). But from that loss to New Orleans, something went terribly wrong for Atlanta, and it was clear that Kirk Cousins wasn’t right.
From Week 10 until his benching after Week 15’s win over the Raiders, Cousins threw one touchdown to nine interceptions. He was brutal, and everyone watching could see that he wasn’t the same player who led the Falcons to that 6-3 start.
It turns out that Cousins was indeed hurt.
Speaking to NFL Network on Tuesday, Cousins said that he injured his shoulder against the Saints and never could get it right after that. Now, the Falcons likely avoided discipline from the league by listing Cousins on the Week 11 injury report, but he wasn’t listed in the subsequent weeks. Notably, the Falcons did need to forfeit a pick for a tampering violation in signing Cousins.
Kirk Cousins says he was dealing with a shoulder & elbow injury after the #Falcons loss to the Saints.
That loss kickstarted the losing skid for Atlanta which ultimately led to Cousins’ benching.
Still, if the Falcons knew that Cousins was hurt — or at the very least, not confident in his shoulder — why would they continue to play him as the division lead slipped away? There’s really no excuse beyond trying to avoid giving the keys to Michael Penix Jr. amid Cousins’ contract.
The Falcons ultimately did go with the rookie quarterback in Week 16. But given Cousins’ explanation, it was a move that should have happened far sooner.
If you lose to Kirk Cousins, you don’t win the Super Bowl. Same as being Kirk Cousins.
The Philadelphia Eagles opened as 1.5-point underdogs against the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 59. If the Kirk Cousins Curse has anything to say about it, the smart money is on the Chiefs.
The Cousins Curse suggests any team that loses to Cousins in the regular season cannot win a world championship. It’s a trend that covers the entirety of the veteran quarterback’s 13-year career, but began in earnest in 2016.
That year, the Green Bay Packers lost to an 8-7-1 Washington team. While Aaron Rodgers capped another stellar year by crushing the Dallas Cowboys’ title hopes into dust in the Divisional Round that January, Green Bay’s 44-21 loss to the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC title game ended their season (and paved the way for another curse thanks to Atlanta’s legendary and temporary 28-3 Super Bowl LI lead).
Since then, playoff teams who lose to Cousins in the regular season have consistently fallen short of the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It’s a curiosity that’s stung the Packers thrice — more than any other team in the league. Their hold on that record, however, will be put to the test at Super Bowl 59.
The Eagles have twice had their playoff runs ended by non-Cousins teams after losing regular season games to Cousins in 2018 and 2019. They tasted familiar defeat against the Falcons 22-21 back in September.
It should be noted that the one guaranteed way to insulate yourself from this curse — signing Kirk Cousins — has failed to yield measurable success. The veteran has one playoff win in a decade as a starter, fewer than rookie Jayden Daniels or second-year quarterback C.J. Stroud.
The Minnesota Vikings have only three picks in the upcoming 2025 NFL Draft, but they could have compensatory picks coming their way.
The Minnesota Vikings did a lot in the 2024 NFL Draft to secure the future of their franchise and continue building a solid foundation. Namely, they drafted their presumed future franchise quarterback J.J. McCarthy, with the 10th pick in the first round.
But one pick in the first wasn’t enough for them, as they traded their second, third, and fourth-round picks in 2025 to come back into the first and draft edge rusher Dallas Turner.
Unfortunately for the Vikings, they didn’t see much return on either of those picks in 2024 — for very different reasons. McCarthy suffered a season-ending injury in the preseason, opening the door for Sam Darnold to have a career year in 2024.
On the other hand, Turner was healthy all year but struggled to see much playing time. To make matters worse for the Vikings, that trade left the team with just a first and two fifth-round picks in 2025 (also owing in part to the 2023 trade of Za’Darius Smith). But thankfully, some help might be on the way in the form of compensatory picks.
Every season, the NFL hands out compensatory picks in the upcoming NFL Draft for teams that lost significant players in the previous year’s free agency period. A complicated formula goes into calculating how many picks each team gets, and which rounds those picks will be in.
So, how many picks will Minnesota get, and which rounds will they be in?
According to the latest projection from Nick Korte of Over the Cap, the Vikings are expected to get just one compensatory pick, but it’s projected to be a third-round pick as compensation for the loss of quarterback Kirk Cousins to the Atlanta Falcons.
Getting a third-round pick back certainly helps to mitigate the team’s draft situation, but they are still strapped for picks and have a lot of holes on the roster to fill — particularly in the defensive backfield. However, the team does project to have a significant amount of salary cap space, so they figure to be big players in the free agent market this year, rather than the NFL Draft.
On Saturday, a former Vikings quarterback made his TV debut to the delight of many in how he carried himself.
A former NFL player transitioning from the field to the studio isn’t unheard of. So many of the best analysts are former players and they happen to be okay with handling themselves on TV or in various forms of media.
On Saturday, a former Vikings quarterback made his TV debut to the delight of many in how he carried himself.
Kirk Cousins made his TV debut working for ESPN as a part of their pregame coverage of the Chiefs-Texans Divisional Round matchup. His work was seen as a nice change of pace and drew praise from several people on social media, including Pat McAfee.
Cousins was benched this year by his new team, the Atlanta Falcons, in favor of Michael Penix Jr. His future in Atlanta remains in limbo, but it seems no matter what his next chapter may involve, he has a career in media going forward.
One NFL analyst predicts that the New York Giants will trade a 2025 draft pick and CB Cor’Dale Flott for a four-time Pro Bowl quarterback.
The New York Giants will enter the offseason with their sights set on finding a new quarterback. How they go about that, however, is yet to be determined.
Co-owner John Mara and general manager Joe Schoen have left the door open to all possibilities, including the potential trade for a veteran.
“We’ve done a lot of work on the college guys. John mentioned earlier that we’ll look at free agency. We can also look throughout the draft, potential trade opportunities,” Schoen said at his year-end press conference. “We’ll look at any avenue we can to upgrade the position.”
With two quarterback-needy teams picking ahead of them in the NFL draft — the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns — the Giants might be blocked out from landing either Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders, who are widely viewed as the top two quarterbacks in the current class.
Ultimately, the Giants could hedge their bets and add a veteran before the calendar flips to April.
The Giants don’t have a quarterback under contract for 2025, so they will likely add a veteran with significant starting experience. Because of Cousins’ age and subpar 2024 season, Big Blue may be able to acquire him in exchange for a fourth-round pick.
Remember, the Falcons traded Matt Ryan to the Indianapolis Colts for a third-round pick in 2022. At the time, he was the same as Cousins is right now.
Nonetheless, Ryan posted more efficient passing numbers in his last season as a starter with Atlanta than Cousins did in 2024. So, the Falcons may get a little less for Cousins than they got for Ryan.
Yet Cousins may be the Giants’ best option and could be available at a modest compensation rate.
In Moton’s scenario, the Giants ship a 2025 fourth-round pick and cornerback Cor’Dale Flott off to the Atlanta Falcons in exchange for Cousins and his four-year, $180 million deal that has three years remaining.
There is a potential out in Cousin’s contract after the 2025 season, but the dead cap hit ($25 million) would still cause some damage.
Cousins completed 66.9 percent of his passes for 3,508 yards, 18 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions this past season before being benched in favor of rookie Michael Penix Jr., whom the Giants passed over in the 2024 NFL draft.
Given that Penix is expected to lead the team next season, it would make sense for the Falcons to trade Cousins. And given their desperate need for a quarterback, it would also make sense for the Giants to acquire him.
Should the Giants opt for the trade route, Cousins could very well end up being their desired target.
Daniels’s composure suggests the Dan Snyder era is finally, mercifully over.
Jayden Daniels has as many playoff wins as Kirk Cousins.
Kirk Cousins is a 13 year NFL veteran who has made nearly $300 million in his career. Jayden Daniels is not yet finished with his rookie season.
The Washington Commanders know both well. They let Cousins twist in the wind after rising from fourth round draft pick to Pro Bowl quarterback. His 26 regular season wins are the most any starting QB has had since Mark Rypien left the team in 1993. But that wasn’t enough for former owner Dan Snyder, who refused to sign him to a long-term extension and ensured the franchise would wander in the desert until he sold the team amid a mounting tsunami of bad press in 2023.
Success didn’t come easily to a team so dysfunctional that even Jerry Jones publicly side-eyed it. But new owner Josh Harris can tie Snyder’s playoff win total next week against the Detroit Lions if Daniels can be great once more.
That’s Daniels’s final meaningful play of a 23-20 wild card win, on the road, over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In need of a first down to gain leverage to attempt a game-winning field goal with no time on the clock, offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury dialed up a fake-handoff quarterback sweep for the passer whose 891 rushing yards ranked second only to Lamar Jackson in 2024.
Bucs defensive tackle Calijah Kancey, a thorn in Washington’s side all night who’d previously blown up a short-yardage play at the goal line that ultimately cost the Commanders seven points, snuffed it out immediately. For a moment, it looked like Tampa Bay would get the chance to tie or win the game with a harried two-minute drill to wrap up regulation.
And then:
via NBC
Daniels stiff-armed the 280-pound lineman, leaving him with nothing but a towel to cling to on what was the final non-kneeldown snap of his season. It was stunning. And at the same time it wasn’t, because at no point did Daniels look like a rookie playoff debutante.
While fellow first year quarterback Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos went scoreless over the final 57 minutes of their wild card game against the Buffalo Bills, Daniels rose to each challenge Tampa Bay threw his way. He avoided negative plays with aplomb, sacked only once and even that happened at the line of scrimmage. He didn’t force plays over the middle of the field or throw across his body, taking the easy-to-intercept tosses you might expect from a young quarterback (ahem, Jordan Love) off the table.
When pressed to make a play, he defaulted to the guy he trusts most in the best possible way.
When Terry McLaurin was bracketed, he progressed quickly and made Dyami Brown a devastating weapon. Dyami Brown. The wideout with exactly one game where he had more than 57 receiving yards in four years as a pro exploded for a career high five catches and 86 yards. That included the kind of entirely-too-open touchdown only possible when you’ve only had one game with more than 57 receiving yards in four years as a pro.
Baker Mayfield was in the midst of his finest season in the NFL and Daniels went out and nearly doubled his expected points added (EPA) for the game, out-dueling the veteran 13.9 EPA to 7.1. The rookie threw nine passes that traveled at least 10 yards downfield. He completed eight of them for 135 yards, two touchdowns and a perfect 158.3 passer rating.
via nextgenstats.nfl.com
This was, in a word, remarkable. The moment did not swallow Daniels whole or even take a chunk out of him. He suggested his best is still yet to come in the kind of anxiety inducing situation that turns most rookie quarterbacks into something less. The degree of difficulty wasn’t the highest he’ll face in the postseason — Tampa Bay’s depleted secondary created the opportunities he was eager to exploit — but this is still a big deal.
Unlike years past in the nation’s capital, it feels sustainable.
Washington had glimmers of light in the Snyder era. Each was summarily snuffed out like candles after a sparsely attended mass. Clinton Portis and a cast of talented targets pushed Jason Campbell to a postseason start. Robert Griffin III, another former Heisman Trophy winner drafted second overall, took his team to the playoffs as a rookie. Cousins maximized his potential. Taylor Heinicke looked competent after a 7-9 team won the NFC East.
None of these relative high points, the NFL equivalent of the tallest building in Wyoming, lasted. Griffin’s career was cut short by injury on terrible turf and with a coaching staff unwilling to pull him out of the game for his own sake. Cousins was antagonized with franchise tags until he left, signing an $84 million, fully guaranteed contract with a Minnesota Vikings franchise desperate to reverse its own agony. Heinicke’s unlikely emergence didn’t last and Snyder’s inability to find a quarterback capable of maximizing Portis, Santana Moss and a defense led by a rising Sean Taylor paved the way for nearly two decades without a playoff win.
Finally, hope has returned to Washington in the form of a dual threat quarterback capable of rising to the moment. The Commanders may not be a Super Bowl threat this winter — that thin playmaking corps behind McLaurin and a below average defense suggest Daniels will have to be super human to get there. But a franchise that could easily be hand waved away for the better part of 20 years is surging, its rebuild way ahead of schedule and with three years to maximize a rookie contract that will make the young QB one of the NFL’s biggest bargains.
A player with the composure, 18 starts into his pro career, to stand in the pocket with his season on the line and put the ball exactly where it needs to be.
There was no panic to Daniels’s game, no sense of the impending doom that hung over the Snyder era like a dangling anvil of karma. Things are different in Washington. While that may not manifest in anything more than a divisional round appearance this winter, it’s terrible news for the rest of the NFC going forward.
The Browns will look to add real competition to their QB room despite restructuring the contract of Deshaun Watson
The Cleveland Browns and Deshaun Watson have been back in the news this weekend.
For the third time in three years, the two sides opted to restructure his contract to create more cap flexibility for the Browns. This likely locks Watson onto the roster through the 2026 season, but it does not guarantee that he will ever see the field again.
For starters, Watson is still recovering from an achilles rupture suffered near the midway point in the season. Beyond that, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport has reported that the Browns will bring in competition this summer. Here is what Rapoport had to say:
“Deshaun Watson is expected to be on the Browns next year and then likely the year after. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Browns brought in quarterback competition.”
NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero then added:
“That competition for Deshaun Watson could come in the form of a rookie quarterback, a veteran, or both. The Browns are going to be drafting in the top-10, quite possibly in the top-5. They have already been doing homework on this quarterback class in 2025. There are also some intriguing veteran names out there. One that is certainly to be in the conversation is Kirk Cousins.”
Pelissero adds to what ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler had to say yesterday, that similar to Russell Wilson this season with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cousins could be had for the veteran minimum as he is getting his guaranteed money from the Falcons still and as he looks to rebuild his image.
Just because Watson is going to be on the roster does not mean he will see the field again in Cleveland.
There doesn’t seem to be any question about quarterback Brock Purdy’s future with the San Francisco 49ers.
All indicators are the team is happy with his development and that his contract extension will get done in the offseason. However, the specter of Kirk Cousins always looms given how central he was to head coach Kyle Shanahan’s team-building strategy when he arrived in San Francisco in 2017.
The 49ers have been connected to him multiple times since, but there’s never been a reunion between Shanahan and the QB Washington selected in the fourth round of the 2012 draft when Shanahan was their offensive coordinator. With Cousins potentially hitting free agency again after getting benched this year by the Atlanta Falcons, it was easy to once again draw a line between him and Shanahan, even as a backup for Purdy.
It doesn’t appear Cousins will have to resort to taking a backup job just yet though.
“I’m thinking of Cleveland,” Fowler said. “I think the Kirk Cousins situation in Atlanta could be mana from heaven for Cleveland because it’s Russell Wilson all over again. There’s a scenario where you could get Kirk Cousins for a million dollars. When you’re paying Deshaun Watson 46 million a year, that’s a great bargain that you need. You’d have two quarterbacks coming off Achilles issues — that’s not ideal. But we’ve seen it. Kirk Cousins can operate Kevin Stefanski’s offense. We’ve seen it in Minnesota, he’s had success, they’ve had success together. It just makes a lot of sense. While Deshaun is — whether he’s gonna play or not for the Browns — he still has to recover from an Achilles issue, and that’s going to take time. So you have to get a veteran in there.”
Purdy’s contract situation has already moved to the top of the 49ers’ list of headlines now that their postseason hopes are over. It’ll continue to be a topic of conversation until he signs a long-term deal with the team.
It sounds for now though like the Cousins wrinkle won’t be a factor as long as there are teams like the Browns willing to take him in as a starter.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler thinks that Kirk Cousins may just be Cleveland’s way out of the Watson disaster
As the short Atlanta Falcons chapter of the career of Kirk Cousins comes to a close, the obvious connection to the Cleveland Browns will not go away.
The Browns will be looking for a new quarterback to bring in as the Deshaun Watson experience appears to be over whether he is on the roster in 2025 or not. That leaves the Browns looking for an answer at the quarterback position, and likely a shorter-term one short of landing Sam Darnold in free agency.
Cousins, benched for rookie first round pick Michael Penix Jr. due to subpar play less than one year into the massive three-year deal he signed, is set to be released by the Falcons this offseason as he does not have a tradeable contract. This means he will be able to choose his next team once again this offseason.
One analyst, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler continues to connect the dots between Cousins and his former offensive coordinator in Minnesota, Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski. Fowler goes as far as to call Cousins “Manna from Heaven” for the Browns considering what his cap cost may be.
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Comparing this situation to Russell Wilson and the Pittsburgh Steelers after his release from the Denver Broncos, Fowler states that Cousins can be had for around the veteran minimum based on his age, play after returning from his achilles injury, and the amount of guaranteed money he would still be making from the Falcons.
There are certainly better options than the 36-year-old Cousins, but if the Browns do not want to spend big money hunting Sam Darnold or draft either Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward in the first round of the 2025 NFL draft, then Cousins may just be their best option for the short-term to help them get out from underneath of the Watson contract.
