Falcons training camp 2024 Day 7 recap: Kirk Cousins shows his best at Mercedes-Benz Stadium

It was a scrimmage-heavy day at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and one where Kirk Cousins went back to his dominating ways.

Day 7 of training camp and it felt like this was the one every other practice was building toward. The Atlanta Falcons took to their home stadium of Mercedes-Benz Stadium and a high energy crowd that has now only had its second chance to watch a training camp practice this year, along with last Saturday’s session at Seckinger High School.

It was known that the Falcons were going to have a scrimmage-heavy session tonight and that’s exactly what we got following about a half hour of warm ups, drills and walkthrough. On just the second pass of the day, safety DeMarcco Hellams laid out wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud, setting the tone for the evening.

It was all systems go from there as the Birds looked to give their fans a show throughout the night.

Here are my observations from Day 7 of 2024 Falcons training camp.

Kirk Cousins gets back to his dominant ways

This training camp has thus far been broken up into two parts for quarterback Kirk Cousins — the first part being days 2 and 3, when shorts were on and he absolutely sliced the defense to the tune of going a combined 28-30, and then the second part being days 5 and 6 in pads when he completed mostly short passes and took a noticeable step back.

Tonight felt like more of a return to the form Cousins showcased in that first part, as he once again looked to be a step ahead of the defense. Number 18 went an overall 17-20 tonight. He also went 1-1 for a touchdown in the red zone drill and 4-4 to “win” a two-minute drill exercise for the offense.

Cousins still utilized the short game plenty but he was much more accurate on intermediate and deep shots than he has been since the pads came on. The Michigan State man completed 15 consecutive passes up until his final throw which was a deep shot to WR Darnell Mooney in double coverage (it fell incomplete).

Drake London stands out as Cousins’ favorite target

All throughout camp it seemed like Kirk Cousins was just as laser focused on distributing the ball as he was on actually delivering the passes themselves. Most days, there has been a large grouping of receivers all within a couple of catches of one another.

Tonight felt like the first time Cousins really locked on to one specific target — WR Drake London. For his part, London justified that trust, hauling in eight of Kirk’s 17 completions on all eight of his targets, including the lone end zone target which came from QB1. He beat cornerback Anthony Johnson pretty easily, running an out route.

There was one point where London secured four consecutive passes from Cousins, across three different sessions. His final two receptions of the night came back to back against CB A.J. Terrell despite pretty good coverage, including a deep shot near the sideline which was Cousins’ longest completion of the night.

Michael Penix struggles early and then settles in a bit

While Cousins was accurate early and often, QB Michael Penix started out in brutal fashion, missing on five of his first six passes, including the first four throws, and really being at fault for every single one of those incompletions. The first two throws were both dangerous missed passes as well, with defenders nearby.

Penix settled in a bit and immediately completed five of his six passes following this forgettable flurry. One thing I have been very impressed by with the rookie out of Washington has been his ability to immediately bounce back following adversity.

Overall, Penix went 10-19 against mostly the first team defense. The good continues to flash even when the final results aren’t ideal for the Number 8 overall pick, however. In the same 2-minute drill Cousins went 4-4 on to get the “win,” Penix went 4-5, overcoming a sack and a bad drop, to get another “win” for the offense.

Another promising sign is that I had six of Penix’s 10 passes as going for 10 or more yards downfield. When he did connect deep, the throws were absolutely on the money. The rookie also suffered from two clear drops as his receivers’ mistakes have somewhat plagued him throughout camp.

Tyler Allgeier and Bijan Robinson split first team touches, Carlos Washington impresses as RB3

The run game had mixed success tonight with some runs going for decent yardage and some stopped for short gain as it remains impossible to fully judge the ground game with players not actually tackling each other.

The more interesting thing to note for me is that running back Bijan Robinson and RB Tyler Allgeier split first team reps almost dead even down the middle. Both running backs had nine carries each, with Robinson out catching Allgeier 2-1 and taking three red zone carries to Tyler’s two. OC Zac Robinson did say earlier this week that Allgeier would have a “great role” in this offense, and tonight indicates that it may be a bigger role than we expected this past offseason.

The best pure runner of the night was RB Carlos Washington Jr. who hit holes decisively and who took the majority of carries with Michael Penix and the second team offense. This is the first time Washington got more work than rookie RB Jase McClellan, who seemed to have a lead in the RB3 competition coming into tonight.

Where Washington really hurt himself, however, was in pass protection, letting up two sacks on linebacker blitzes up the middle.

Inside Linebacker remains a rotation, Richie Grant remains the starter at safety, Ray-Ray McCloud stays steady in the slot

Moving on to competitions, it was inside linebacker Nate Landman who got the start with the first team tonight with ILB Troy Andersen initially working with the second team. The two continued their very frequent rotation.

Landman had an impressive night, putting pressure on the quarterback a couple of times and once punching the ball free from tight end Ross Dwelley in Penix’s 2-minute drill (it went out of bounds and the offense kept possession, however).

Strong safety Richie Grant remains the starter, and it looks like he will go into the preseason with a pretty good hold on the position. SS DeMarcco Hellams did get some rotation in with the first team, and it seemed to have been a bit more rotation than we’ve seen since Day 1.

WR Ray-Ray McCloud remains firm as the starting slot receiver but he once again was not very impressive. He had just one reception all night, and now only has two total catches in three days of practice since pads came on.

One of the reasons why I think this has not become more of a competition is because WR Rondale Moore keeps getting in his own way with mistakes. Moore had two receptions from Penix today, working exclusively with the second team once again, but he had a brutal drop in the 2-minute drill which ended up going into the hands of S Lukas Denis who (luckily for Moore) could not corral it. This comes on the heals of Day 6, when a Moore drop directly resulted in a CB Clark Phillips III interception on the same play.

Other Notes:

• ILB JD Bertrand had a really strong day with two sacks of Michael Penix on blitz plays. These were both the plays where Carlos Washington was at fault.
• Defensive tackle Eddie Goldman once again got plenty of run with the first team at nose tackle in the 3-4 and then defensive tackle in the 4-3 (when DT Grady Jarrett was given a rest).
• Clark Phillips III may not be one of the starting corners at the moment, but he certainly seems like the next man up. He got some first team reps in place of Terrell, while CB Mike Hughes got maybe all of the first team reps (I did not count snaps so cannot officially confirm this, but if not all it was close to all).
• Players to catch passes from Kirk Cousins tonight: Drake London (8), WR Darnell Mooney (3), TE Kyle Pitts (2), RB Bijan Robinson (2), WR Ray-Ray McCloud (1), RB Tyler Allgeier (1)
• Kyle Pitts now has just three total passes thrown to him (all three receptions) in the past two practices combined from Cousins, who has 47 total attempts in that time period.
• Tackle Storm Norton really impressed me tonight. He worked mostly with the second team but was the left tackle for the first team in their 2-minute drill.
• WR KhaDarel Hodge had the other touchdown of the night on a 10-yard end around play.
• DT Ruke Orhorhoro had a sack.
• Kicker Younghoe Koo nailed 6 of his 7 kicks tonight, with the majority of them coming over 50 yards in distance. His lone miss was a 55-yarder off the post.

• Ray-Ray McCloud, Rondale Moore and RB Avery Williams were the guys fielding punt returns, in that order.

That’s it for this one. The Falcons have one more practice on Monday, one which I expect to be pretty quiet, before flying to Miami for joint practices and their first preseason game.

I will be at Flowery Branch one more day, on Monday. That will be my final day covering training camp this year.