The Raiders found a way to funnel $20 million to quarterback Kirk Cousins for 2026 while also sticking the Falcons with $8.7 million of the bill. The Falcons, as we understand it, don’t intend to make a stink about it.
The issue comes from a fully-guaranteed $10 million obligation for 2026, which vested when Cousins remained on the Atlanta roster in March 2025. (The “widespread expectation” that he’d be cut before it vested should have been much more narrow.) With Cousins having a 2026 market value in excess of $10 million, the Falcons may have thought they’d avoid paying any of the final $10 million.
The Raiders had another plan. By giving Cousins a $1.3 million salary in 2026 and a fully-guaranteed $10 million roster bonus due in March 2027, the Raiders found a way to give Cousins $20 million while only paying $11.3 million of it. The Falcons remain on the hook for the remaining $8.7 million.
While the precise language of the Cousins deal has yet to surface, it’s believed that the contract will result in Cousins being released after one season. That would, in theory, allow him to do the same thing next year — getting the minimum from a new team, forcing the Raiders to pay the balance, and adding a fully-guaranteed roster bonus for 2028.
Regardless, the Raiders found a loophole and used it. And the Falcons plan to let it go.
Making it easier for the Falcons to move on is the fact that they got quarterback Tua Tagovailoa for $1.3 million in 2026, with the Dolphins owing him $52.7 million.
As to the possibility that the loophole will be closed, one source predicts it will remain. For one thing, any offset (even if it’s only the minimum salary) helps defray the sunken cost of a failed contract. Also, the loophole the Raiders utilized can now be used by any other team that hopes to sign a player whose market value exceeds his guaranteed pay.
Besides, it will rarely be used. Younger players (like Tagovailoa and Kyler Murray) will strongly prefer a one-year deal and a shot at the open market. (Murray wisely added a no-tag clause to his contract with the Vikings.) A guarantee in the second year only becomes useful to a player who may be inching toward the end of his career. Rarely will a team be willing to make a major commitment beyond the first year to a player who was just released by a team that owed him a significant commitment.
Arden Badon
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