The Falcons and QB Kirk Cousins have agreed to a modified contract per ESPN’s Field Yates which sets the stage for Cousins release from the Falcons while also helping the Falcons with their salary cap situation in 2026. Here is a breakdown of what the Falcons did.
In Cousins’ prior contract he was set to count for $57.5 million against the salary cap in 2026 which would have had the Falcons somewhere around the salary cap limit for 2026. Nobody expected Cousins to be a member of the Falcons next year and he would carry a dead money charge of $35 million once cut. That would allow Atlanta to free up about $22.5 million in cap room, giving them some breathing room with the cap.
The problem for Atlanta was Cousins’ contract has a $10 million salary guarantee which prevented the team from releasing Cousins prior to the start of free agency, meaning his $57.5 million cap charge would need to be carried on the books for the start of the 2026 league year, perhaps causing the team to restructure some other contracts for cap relief that they really did not want to touch. This modification gives the Falcons the breathing room they need to deal with Cousins and make out in the best way possible for their cap situation.
The team reduced Cousins paper salary from $35 million to $2.1 million. The reason for the $2.1 million number is because it equals the maximum payment that Cousins could have received if he were injured in the final game of the season in 2025 and that injury prevented him from playing in 2026. This allows Cousins to still collect in the event he had been injured. His roster bonus, which is guaranteed will remain in place. This drops Cousins cap charge immediately to $24.6 million, a savings of $32.5 million on the cap.
This low cap charge allows the Falcons to designate Cousins a post June 1 release at the start of the new league year. He would remain on the teams cap at $24.6 million until June 1 at which point his cap charge will drop to $22.5 million for the year. $12.5 million in dead money will be deferred to 2027. To ensure the Falcons release him, Atlanta gave him a guarantee trigger on his entire 2027 salary of $67.9 million of the 3rd day of the league year meaning that the Falcons will cut him on March 12th to avoid that trigger.
Cousins will join a growing list of players who are helping teams with their salary cap on their way out the door. He is not the only player who did a modification like this late in the year (Saturday was the final day teams could modify contracts in this manner to take advantage of the post June 1 rules) but it is an interesting trend around the NFL where teams are consistently finding ways to get more help with their salary cap from players who were signed to bad contracts.