Kirk Cousins, Top Free-Agent QB, Could Wait Until Post-Draft to Choose Destination

Veteran Kirk Cousins is seen as the best quarterback still without an NFL team at this point. 

And it’s quite possible he waits until deep into the offseason to make any decisions about where he is playing in 2026, according to league sources.

Cousins finished strong in the second half of the 2025 season, finally looking healthy again after an Achilles injury compromised his 2024 campaign. 

Several executives who had essentially written him off, actually altered their evaluations of Cousins based on his late-season surge, but the unusual market forces at place this spring, with quarterbacks like Kyler Murray and Tua Tagovailoa available for veteran-minimum contracts (just $1.3M for 2026) led teams to go that route early in free agency.

While several GMs told me they believe the Falcons would have been far better off keeping Cousins as their starter for this season, Atlanta did not attempt to bring him back, the sources said, and at this point it might make the most sense for him to wait until inevitable injuries occur, rather than make a decision now. Cousins is not going to be signing anywhere for the veteran minimum, and there are fewer options available to him now.

Patience Might Be Required

Pittsburgh is monitoring Cousins and view him as a viable alternative if Aaron Rodgers opts to retire. 

Las Vegas is still looking for a more establishing quarterback to buy them time if they need it, if presumptive first-overall pick Fernando Mendoza is not ready to start Week 1. 

Several executives have noted Cousins’s past ties to head coach Kyle Shanahan (San Francisco) and Sean McVay (Los Angeles Rams), and believe Cousins could be a welcome addition as a back-up there (or perhaps with Andy Ried in Kansas City), but at this point it seems unlikely Cousins would go that route without exhausting any opportunity to start.

Every year some team suffers a devastating quarterback injury during spring practices or training camp, and some teams that draft quarterbacks in the top few rounds also tend to find out pretty quickly that the prospect is not going to be ready to contribute early in the season. It might require one of those situations to emerge for Cousins to find his next club unless Rodgers opts to retire.

Cousins became one of the better starting quarterbacks in the NFL at Washington, where he was eventually franchise tagged. He ended up signing one of the most lucrative short-term, fully guaranteed deals in NFL history with Minnesota and then landed another massive free-agent deal with Atlanta, only for the team to also invest a top 10 pick in quarterback Michael Penix, who has yet to pan out.