If the season slips away, especially if the season slips away because of Cousins, the Falcons will have to weigh the move.
Close-knit teams with good teammates, the kind of squad I feel confident in saying the Atlanta Falcons have fostered, stick up for their guys. Drake London routinely came to Desmond Ridder’s defense a year ago, and he’s routinely coming to Kirk Cousins’ defense in 2024. He’s hardly alone in doing so, however, From the head coach to offensive linemen to to receivers, the organization is expressing faith in Cousins and taking umbrage to the suggestion that he should be benched in favor of rookie Michael Penix.
They’re doing so despite one of the ugliest games imaginable from Cousins, one with rookie-level mistakes that led to four interceptions, including a stare-down, telegraphed ball right at a defensive back on fourth down and a pillow-armed jump ball that shouldn’t have been to London in the end zone. They’re acting, indeed, like the question is a little bit absurd, despite Kirk Cousins now having fumbled an NFL-leading 12 times and throwing a league-leading 13 interceptions. Morris is talking about Cousins being here to take the Falcons to the playoffs despite this offense scoring just one touchdown in their past nine quarters, and he doused any chatter of Cousins not taking the field as the starter against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 14.
That’s the mark of a team hellbent on cohesion, and however much you might enjoy someone getting called out, organizations that snipe at one another publicly are rarely good organizations. The Falcons feel compelled to defend Cousins and ride with him as the starting quarterback. It will stay that way…until it doesn’t.
The Falcons are like any other NFL team in ways large and small, but one of those ways is simply that losing forces decisions. The New York Jets fired Robert Saleh and then general manager Joe Douglas because the losses were piling up; the New York Giants benched, humiliated, and then released Daniel Jones for the same reason. The Carolina Panthers got jumpy with an overwhelmed Bryce Young and parked him before he got back into a starting role and impressed, the Patriots abandoned the idea of having Jacoby Brissett ride out the season when the offense sputtered in favor of rookie Drake Maye, the 49ers jettisoned Trey Lance and the Bears flipped Justin Fields, and so forth.
I’m not arguing these are all necessarily the right or the smartest decisions, but teams abhor the idea of sticking with the status quo all season long unless they A) have no alternative or B) are the Cleveland Browns and refuse to give up on an insanely bad decision. The exceptions to the rule, like the Cowboys stubbornly sticking with Mike McCarthy or the Falcons choosing one last ride with Dan Quinn and Thomas Dimitroff in 2020, rarely find it working out for them. It is indeed a rare team that can hold everything together and make zero changes riding out a long losing streak; the Falcons last year found that out when they were forced to play musical chairs at quarterback in a way that got tougher to watch as the season wore on. If things get bad enough, a player or a coach will have to fall on the sword as the team searches to reverse a skid, especially if that player or coach is very obviously a major reason they’re losing.
The Falcons aren’t there yet, but the margin between “Kirk Cousins is our guy” and “we just felt Michael Penix gave us a better chance to win” is getting very thin. The Falcons are not shifting anything away from first-year play caller Zac Robinson, are not benching receivers or offensive linemen or running backs, and so on. This offense is built pretty well and has ample talent, which means the quarterback is easy to blame on an average day, but even easier to blame when he is the reason you’re losing. Cousins has played a role in the last three losses, which have essentially erased Atlanta’s commanding lead in the NFC South, and he almost single-handedly lost this game to the Chargers with his four interceptions, fumble, near-interceptions, and inaccuracy on the day. That was a nightmarish effort that ranks among the worst games in his long career; and sure, no one expects him to be quite that bad again any time soon.
But if he is—or if he’s simply middling and losses instead of wins follow from here—the team will have a big financial headache to endure and a big decision to make. Cousins would have to be traded next year if this become’s Penix’s Team, but even a short-term, get-right benching would likely shake things up to the extent that the team and Cousins might part next year. This is a humble-sounding but prideful veteran quarterback who obsesses over the small details, and having to ride the pine for the rookie the Falcons swore they weren’t looking to replace him with this year might make it impossible for life to go on for team and player from there, even if it only lasts a game or two. Cousins will feel he’s done everything he can to get back on track, I’m certain.
Raheem Morris is right, up to a point, that the Falcons don’t get to where they are without Cousins this season. The problem is that where they are is not anywhere special—.500 ball and atop the division only thanks to a tiebreaker—and that Cousins has played a major role in both the victories to this point (Tampa Bay, Dallas, the thrilling final drive against Philadelphia) and their losses (Denver, New Orleans, and now Los Angeles). The Falcons paid Cousins to get them to the playoffs; while that remains within reach, he’ll be the guy.
But the Falcons know full well they can’t endure what’s been happening the past three weeks, especially Week 13. Cousins has quietly been pretty middling all year outside of a handful of games, but this was something worse. You can’t sell this fanbase and the larger NFL on a vision that includes missing the playoffs because Cousins is struggling, but don’t worry, he’ll be better in 2025 when he’s 37 years old. We’re getting dangerously close to that happening because the Falcons are getting dangerously close to falling behind the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and their record has them a mile away from Wild Card contention in the NFC if that happens. The Falcons need to start winning right now, preferably with Cousins holding his own, or the temptation to shake things up to save the season and/or build excitement heading into next year is going to be very strong.
This is an easier temptation to avoid if the Falcons think Penix is miles away from ready, but even in garbage time he’s looked decisive and capable in very short stints. The suggestion that Penix, a fairly seasoned college starter coming off a tremendous final season at Washington, is likely to be miles behind the likes of Bo Nix and Drake Maye with their early successes seems absurd to me. The reason the Falcons won’t go to Penix now is because they think Cousins can be better than he has been and is their best option by a mile when he’s playing well—they’re at least theoretically right about that—and because they know they may not be able to go back, at least not in 2025. But Penix, who moves well and has a terrific arm, would offer Atlanta those two obvious advantages over Cousins right now if he was inserted into the lineup.
The Falcons knew they were attempting to thread a needle when they signed Cousins and drafted Penix, and while both decisions are open game for criticism in a vacuum, signing Cousins and then drafting Penix is very obviously going to go down as a defensible decision. The hope was that Cousins would play well enough that there was really no controversy worth noting until the 2026 offseason, or at least late 2025, so this team could have its 2024 and 2025 playoff cake and eat the delicious reward of having a future franchise quarterback, too. They did not imagine, I’d wager, that they would find themselves in a situation where Cousins has become an active drag on the offense and leads the NFL in turnovers.
But Cousins is a man with a track record, a player who consistently turns in quality seasons as a passer and helped push Minnesota to the playoffs, and the Falcons will be turning their back on that for someone new and without that record should they make a change. Cousins scuffling with Penix in the wings means you have an insurance plan; if Penix scuffles, too, that will be the end for at least Terry Fontenot. Everything Cousins has done in his career to this point suggests he’ll get out of the muck and start playing solid football again, but everything he’s done in his career came before he was 36 years old, coming off a torn Achilles, and showing evident signs of decline. The Falcons want Cousins to be the quarterback he has been for so long in an excellent career, but if that player is mostly gone, sticking with him could prove to be Atlanta’s undoing in the end.
Just remember that the intentions are pure and the words are heartfelt; I would never accuse Drake London or Raheem Morris of saying one thing and meaning another because this is who they are and what they stand for. That’s admirable. You should also remember they are still just words, and in a business that’s all about wins and losses and who fuels them, Cousins is only going to remain the starter for the rest of the 2024 season if he’s a better quarterback than he has been the past three weeks and the season remains on track. Should this teetering season go any further off the rails, starting next Sunday in Minnesota for Cousins’ return to his old stomping grounds, we’ll be starting the Penix watch. We’ll be right to do so.