The Cleveland Browns are one of those franchises that is linked annually to every quarterback available on the market.
Such is life in the NFL when you’ve gone through 42 different starting quarterbacks since 1999, a list of names filled with draft picks both high (Baker Mayfield at No. 1 overall) and low (Spergon Wynn in the sixth round); bridge quarterbacks like Jeff Garcia, Trent Dilfer and Jake Delhomme; and emergency starters like Bailey Zappe, Bruce Gradkowski and Thaddeus Lewis.
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One name has been consistently linked to the Browns over the years, and that is 37-year-old Kirk Cousins. Back in 2018, when Cousins left Washington as a free agent to sign with the Minnesota Vikings, fans and media were eager for Cousins to put on a Cleveland uniform.
Those calls increased after the Browns hired Kevin Stefanski as head coach in 2020, as the two worked together for two seasons in Minnesota, but neither side showed much interest before Cousins signed with the Atlanta Falcons as a free agent in 2024.
Ironically, instead of Cousins coming to him, Stefanski went to Cousins, or at least Atlanta, after being named the Falcons’ 20th head coach in January.
But that long-awaited reunion may not happen after Tuesday’s news that the Falcons plan to release Cousins when the new league year begins on March 11. The move has been expected since the two sides reworked Cousins’ contract to reduce his base salary for 2026 from $35 million (non-guaranteed) to $2.1 million.
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Now that Cousins is back on the market, the Browns are expected to be linked to the 14-year veteran again.
The question, of course, is whether general manager Andrew Berry and head coach Todd Monken are interested in finally bringing Cousins to Cleveland.
It wasn’t always the best of times for Cousins in Atlanta, as the Falcons selected quarterback Michael Penix in the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft just a month after signing Cousins as a free agent. While he would start 14 games during his first season in Atlanta, shoulder and elbow injuries suffered in a Week 10 game led the Falcons to bench Cousins for the final three games of the season.
Penix opened the 2025 season as a starter, only to suffer a partially torn ACL, and the Falcons turned to Cousins for the final seven games of the season. In better health and two seasons removed from a torn Achilles tendon, Cousins was in better shape and helped the Falcons close the season with five wins in his eight starts.
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Cousins would immediately become the best quarterback on the roster. Although that comes with the qualifier that the roster currently has a broken veteran in Deshaun Watson, and a pair of the statistically worst rookie quarterbacks of the last 25 years in Shedeur Sanders and Dillon Gabriel.
The market for quarterbacks in free agency isn’t strong, unless you fancy the idea of paying Malik Willis $20-$30 million a year for the next few years. Likewise, the draft is short on top-tier quarterbacks after Fernando Mendoza, but plenty of developmental ones, which won’t help the Browns much this fall.
This puts Cousins back in the conversation as the latest bridge quarterback tasked with holding things together for a season while the front office decides what to do next. And if Cousins is willing to play at or near the league minimum because the Browns offer him a big opportunity as a starter this fall, he becomes even more attractive as the club enters the final year of Watson’s contract.
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The problem is that if Cousins gives the Browns average quarterback play, they’ll probably win enough games to fall out of the race for the kind of high 2027 draft pick required to solve the quarterback problem.
An eight- or nine-win season would certainly be better than what happened the last two years, but Cousins isn’t the long-term answer, so what would the Browns really gain by signing him?
Just when it seemed like talks between Cousins and Cleveland were finally over after eight years, he’ll be back on the market. And, as always, the Browns need help at quarterback.
So let the speculation begin!
What do you say, Browns fans? Should the team finally end years of talks and sign Kirk Cousins in free agency? Have your say in the comments!