RandBall: Kirk Cousins revisits 2024 free agency, reminds us it’s all about him

The 2024 breakup between the Vikings and Kirk Cousins was amicable, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t regrets.

Roughly 16 months after Cousins signed a lucrative free agent deal with the Falcons, the tally of those regrets looks something like this:

Vikings: None.

Cousins: Many.

Minnesota, of course, drafted QB J.J. McCarthy and then squeezed out a 14-3 season behind the best year of Sam Darnold’s life while he played on a relatively cheap one-year deal. Now they are cleanly handing the keys to McCarthy after Darnold left for Seattle in another amicable breakup.

Cousins signed what amounted to a two-year deal with $100 million guaranteed in Atlanta (total advertised: four years, $180 million). Then a month later, the Falcons did what the Vikings did: took a rookie QB in the first round of the 2024 draft.

Kirk knew that was the Vikings’ plan. But on a new season of Netflix’s “Quarterback” that came out Tuesday, he admitted he felt "a little bit misled" when Atlanta did it. What if he did know both teams were going to draft QBs in the first round?

“Certainly, if I had the information around free agency, it certainly would’ve affected my decision,” Cousins said on the show. “I had no reason to leave Minnesota with how much we loved it there if both teams are going to be drafting a quarterback high.”

I don’t doubt that it could have affected his decision. But it’s also hard to imagine that Cousins, one of the all-time greats at getting paid, would have turned down the large offer from Atlanta in favor of fewer guarantees from the Vikings. The Falcons essentially gave him two years of money, something Minnesota would not do.

Cousins was looking over his shoulder immediately in Atlanta, which would have been the case in Minnesota, too, had he stayed and they drafted McCarthy.

For the 2024 Falcons, Cousins was having a solid year and Atlanta was 6-3. But in Week 10, he took a hit in a loss to the Saints. That started a four-game losing streak, with one of those being a loss to the Vikings, during which Cousins was intercepted eight times (while throwing no TDs).

Why did he keep playing if his shoulder wasn’t allowing him to throw and compete at a high level?

“You also know that if you sit down Week 10 and take two or three weeks or more to let it heal, you may never get your job back,” Cousins said. “I remember reading Drew Brees’ book back in 2010 when he first wrote it, how he made the point that he tried to never let his backup see the field.”

That’s a normal competitive instinct. It’s also a completely selfish move that hurt the team and Cousins in the long run. He was eventually benched in favor of Michael Penix Jr. because of his poor play, and Atlanta missed the playoffs.

Now Cousins enters 2025 as an extremely overpaid backup to Penix again, with both he and Atlanta surely hoping a trade to another team becomes possible.

“You’ve got to be a grown man and handle it with maturity,” he said of being benched. “I feel sorry for myself, and it’s hard to do, but that’s what you got to do.”

Here are nine more things to know today, starting with a bunch of topics I discussed on Tuesday’s Daily Delivery podcast with Twins Daily writer and co-founder Nick Nelson: