After a string of starts to close out the 2025 season, Kirk Cousins wants back in the saddle next year.
The veteran quarterback, still currently on the Atlanta Falcons, told GMFB:OT on Friday that he is looking forward to returning for a 15th season in 2026, though where he'll be is yet to be decided.
"I would love to keep playing," Cousins said. "I feel rejuvenated after playing last season, and I'm excited to see kind of where it can go from here."
The 37-year-old returned to Atlanta in 2025 as a backup behind Michael Penix Jr. after being benched at the end of the 2024 season. His enormous salary and cap hit made it prohibitive for the Falcons to move him, so Cousins served as the most expensive QB2 in NFL history for most of the '25 campaign.
When Penix went down with a torn ACL in November, Cousins stepped in and played out the season, trying but failing to keep the Falcons in playoff contention. In his last seven starts, Cousins led to Atlanta to a 5-2 record, completing 61.8 percent of his passes for 1,471 yards, 10 touchdowns and five picks. Though the Falcons finished with the same record as the division champion Panthers, Atlanta was eliminated in mid-December and finished third in the NFC South.
With Penix recovering from the knee injury and a new regime, from president of football Matt Ryan to head coach Kevin Stefanski, in charge and noncommittal about the former first-round pick, there are a number of unknowns at the QB position.
Last month, Cousins agreed to a modified contract that re-worked the four-year, $180 million deal he signed in 2024, NFL Network Insider Mike Garafolo reported. The altered deal gives Atlanta salary-cap flexibility and means that Cousins will likely be a free agent by March 13.
For Cousins, a business of football Hall of Famer, the uncertainty is nothing new.
"Well, I've got a lot of reps," Cousins said Friday. "There's been a lot of years of one-year contracts, and what's going to happen next, and will you get traded? So I guess I've kind of lived it. I've learned to be pretty open-minded. And here we are again.
"You don't really know what's going to happen come March. I've learned that February is really quiet, which is really nice. You just kind of go away and disappear and go sit on a beach and then you know that March is coming. My agent Mike McCartney has kind of always handled that. We're on the phone a lot in March. It's kind of been a rite of passage every March. Mike and I are talking all the time. My wife knows, 'Mike McCartney's calling. Can I disappear for a while?'
"But that'll come in March and we'll see where it goes."
Where it goes could be to the fourth team of Cousins' career and third in four years. Or if the new Falcons brass so choose, it could lead the QB back to Atlanta for a second chance.
If NFL interest for the veteran's services dries up, at least he has a fallback plan. Cousins impressed in his postseason work as a studio analyst for CBS Sports, his latest foray into the media space after two seasons on Netflix's Quarterback.
