Kirk Cousins May Be More Hurt Than Thought

B4YOU said
The Penix pick has to be separate from the Cousins contract when considering things.

Q1: Is 36yo Cousins coming off a mid-season Achilles tear worth 100M guaranteed for 2yrs plus 35M dead cap in 2026 or 135M over 3yrs.? Nope. Rodgers and Carr are the top/bottom range for Cousins and ATL over-paid (15-30M). That injury at that age should have resulted in a better contract for ATL.

Q2: Was drafting Penix at 9 a reasonable pick? Yes. ATL just signed a 36yo QB coming off an injury to a 2yr or 3yr deal. They likely won't finish worse than 7-10 which keeps them out of the top QB draft range. We have seen terrible years for QB talent over the last 4 drafts. If you like the pick, you take it. Nobody would question this ATL move if we traded up to 9 in 2017.

Except they guaranteed Cousins $100 million so they will not be able to take advantage of the salary cap benefit of a young QB or use that money to help build the team around Penix.

The Cousins' contract makes sense for them if they don't then use a bunch of picks to take Penix at #9.

And, if you think Penix is going to be a great QB, trading up to take him at #9 makes sense if you didn't just give a $100 million in guaranteed money to 35 (36?) year-old QB.

Each deal makes some sense separately, but they don't make sense together unless they found out that Cousins was not going to recover only after they signed him to the contract.

And frankly, #9 was way too high to take Penix. I honestly think his ceiling is Derek Carr before this year, and he may never even be that.