Kirkmania and the Atlanta Falcons
It's taken nearly a decade. But maybe this team finally can move on from the game they'd rather never speak about again. Kirk Cousins was lights out in the Falcons' TNF thriller over Tampa Bay.
Lesions from the most surreal Super Bowl defeat of this generation were undoubtedly still fresh, still stinging… even if they weren’t fully visible at the time. This was May 2017. A short three months after Matt Ryan and the Atlanta Falcons became known for two numbers: “28” and “3.” Seated inside an office at the team’s Flowery Branch facilities, the reigning MVP quarterback had just finished up a spring practice.
Sweat poured from his forehead underneath a hat.
Ryan, resolute, insisted he was thinking about the future and the future only.
These Falcons would use the pain of squandering a 28-3 lead to the New England Patriots in front of 111.3 million viewers for good.
“Obviously it’s going to stick with you,” Ryan told me then. “If you use it the right way, it’s perfect. You can go one of two ways: You can feel sorry for yourself, feel bad for yourself. Or you can use it as motivation and make yourself more excited, more hungry for the next season.”
This buoyant locker room, he believed, was full of personalities who’d repurpose that mystifying loss into fuel. They all knew how difficult it was to get back to that Super Bowl moment, and they’d do it again. All offseason, friends approached Ryan with sympathy. “Dude, how do you get through your day?” they’d ask. He couldn’t stand it.
“Let’s have some perspective. You think about it. You think about how hard it is to get there, the opportunity you had, all of those things. For some people that could be daunting — knowing how hard it is to do all of that. But for me it’s exciting to see how good we can get, to see how good I can get and to try to push myself even further.”
The mentality was noble. And inspiring. And, frankly, unrealistic.
Recovery was not an option. In retrospect, hope was contrived. Ryan was trying to talk himself into an impossibility. This was a leader saying what leaders should say but, sadly, that version of the Falcons effectively died on Feb. 5, 2017 inside NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. No resuscitation was possible. Cause of death: Tom Brady.
The Falcons scrapped their way through a 10-6 season in ’17, lost on a fourth and goal from the 2-yard line at Philadelphia in the divisional round of the playoffs, then suffered six straight losing seasons. Their wounds were never treatable.
Seven years later, the man in charge of resurrecting the Falcons spoke with even more exuberance. Inside the Embassy Suites during the NFL Combine, Terry Fontenot was set to embark on his fourth year as the team’s general manager. A man who had cycled through Ryan and Marcus Mariota and Desmond Ridder as his starting quarterbacks was now entering the most pivotal offseason of his football life. He brewed a cup of Keurig coffee, sat down with Go Long and could hardly contain his excitement. Free agency was still a couple weeks away, but Fontenot was certain this team would contend for a championship once it found its quarterback. “One-thousand percent. One-thousand percent,” the GM said then. “We’re very confident in that.”
At the tail end of our conversation, he asked what we thought the Falcons should do.
If the goal’s to win now? Kirk Cousins made the most sense, I said.
Fontenot didn’t say anything then but — as we know now, with a $50K tampering charge to show for it — Cousins was always Priority No. 1.
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For the first time since 28-3, all sanguinity radiating from this pocket of the NFL world is very real. The Falcons found their surge of hope from the most peculiar of sources: a 36-year-old fresh off a torn Achilles. In March, Fontenot signed Cousins to a monster contract. In April, the Falcons pulled a draft stunner in selecting Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall. The first month of the 2024 season has not been perfect. There are concerning glitches on defense. But on Thursday night, Cousins orchestrated an absolute banger of a primetime win in completing 72.4 percent of his passes for 509 yards and four touchdowns.
His performance in Atlanta’s 36-30 overtime win over Tampa Bay was one this city has not witnessed in years. Fittingly, Cousins broke Ryan’s single-game passing record on the same night the team put Ryan’s name in its Ring of Honor.
Crazy as it sounds, Kirk Cousins and the Atlanta Falcons just may be a perfect pairing in this wide-open NFC.
Thinking the Falcons could somehow finagle a winning formula together with a C+ Ridder last season was essentially like Ryan choosing to ignore his own team’s obituary in 2017 — wishful thinking. The Falcons dared to be different in 2023, and failed. The Falcons are daring to be different again, in 2024, but for the right reasons. This can work. As practically every other team in the NFL builds around an athletic quarterback in their mid-20s, Fontenot threw $100 million guaranteed at a quarterback who’s feet are rooted into the turf. Cousins has exactly one run of 20 yards or more in his 155-game career. If he’s flushed out of the pocket, there’s a pretty good chance that play will also be flushed down the toilet.
But inside the pocket? Kirk Cousins looks better than ever.
He’s easily one of the most accurate passers in the sport. That still matters most.
Tampa Bay is hurting in the secondary, which is probably why head coach Todd Bowles played zone 92 percent of the time. But Cousins was much obliged. All night, his head bobbed Read No. 1 to Read No. 2 to Read No. 3, as he tore up the Bucs with surgical precision. His accuracy’s at an all-time high. His ball’s one of the most catchable in the NFL. All that stopped the quarterback this night was the occasional dropped pass or missed field goal. The reason Fontenot was so excited to land the QB came to fruition in front of 70,016 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Cousins led a manic 46-yard drive in one minute and 14 seconds to push the game to overtime.
Then, of course, Cousins found Drake London for 18 yards on third and 3 before gunning a slant to KhaDarel Hodge. This ball needed every RPM of velocity, too, with Bucs corner Zyon McCollum jumping the route. It stuck to Hodge’s chest like Velcro and the undrafted journeyman split five defenders for a 45-yard, walk-off touchdown.
His style of play matches Zac Robinson’s offense. On throws in the seams, per NextGen Stats, Cousins’ numbers were nuts: 24 of 28 for 333 yards. Give him time to throw and he can treat the field like an arcade. The most impressive throw? One scoring strike to Darnell Mooney — a back-shoulder laser— between three defenders, the sort of audacious attempt that can cleanse Checkdown Kirk tendencies from his system. Surely, Vikings fans have read this story before and are still justifiably peeved by the quarterback’s fourth-down throw short of the sticks vs. the New York Giants in the ’22 wild card. A truly bizarre decision.
There’s no need to play it safe. Whatever magic Cousins captured vs. the Bucs in this thriller is worth carrying into every game.
Atlanta boasts receiving threats of all sizes and speeds: London (6-4, 213, drawing “Mike Evans” comps out of USC), Kyle Pitts (the fantasy-football punchline is who the TE legends love), Darnell Mooney (4.3 speed worth his $26M guaranteed) and even the well-traveled Ray-Ray McCloud is proving he’s got juice in open space. The Falcons modernized. Gone are the days of Arthur Smith throwing the ball only 44.7 percent of the time in ‘22 (31st in NFL) and 52 percent of the time in ’23 (29th).
On Thursday, Cousins threw the ball 59 times, while Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier combined for 18 carries.
It won’t always be that lopsided. They’ll need to feed Robinson to win some games, surely. But the Falcons have always been starving for a quarterback capable of carrying the offense.
We sat down with Cousins the summer before he linked up with Kevin O’Connell in Minnesota. He’s upbeat by nature and, unlike other QBs with Achilles issues, abhors drama. Yet even then, frustration was obvious. Cousins pointed out that KOC marked his seventh playcaller in seven years. He listed each one off by name.
“You take a deep breath the seventh time like, ‘Whew. I’ve gotta do this again? I’d love to have a year where it’s copy and paste,” Cousins said then. “You’re always evolving. I’m optimistic that if we can win and play well that maybe I could have the same playcaller two or three years in a row. That could be special!”
After 1 ½ years together — averaging 275 yards and two TDs per game — Cousins did what anybody in America should. He maximized his value. He took the best offer in free agency.
Relearning a new offense was his only concern. This time, there was some familiarity. Robinson hails from the same coaching tree as O’Connell. The first month hasn’t been perfect — as quarterback whisperer Quincy Avery noted Cousins was hesitant to pull the trigger the first two weeks. Game to game, he’s looking more comfortable. He’s willing to wait until that last split-second for a receiver to break off a route.
The best sign? He’s excelling in the clutch.
A very real problem in the past.
A reason he always fell short in Minnesota.
One of Cousins’ former coaches once told us that he could visibly see Cousins get “really tight” and “really nervous” under the lights. The assistant coach liked him — a lot — but he was adamant there was something to the quarterback losing a record nine straight games on Monday Night Football from 2014 to 2019. Since linking up with O’Connell in Minnesota, Cousins has shined on the big stage. Last season, he shredded the eventual NFC Champion 49ers for 378 yards, two scores on 35-of-45 passing before then shredding his own Achilles six days later. (Who knows where both the Vikings and Falcons are today if he doesn’t?)
Quarterbacks past have redefined themselves late in their careers. Rich Gannon won an MVP award and reached the Super Bowl. Matthew Stafford won a Super Bowl three years ago.
In Week 2 as a Falcon, Cousins authored a six-play, 70-yard drive in all of one minute to shock the Eagles.
Against the Bucs, he delivered in several pressure-packed spots.
On a fourth and 3, he hung in the pocket for three very long seconds — scanning the entire field as the Bucs’ D-Line caved in — before locating Mooney for 14. The drive ended with a field goal to cut the Bucs’ lead to 24-20. Tampa matched with a FG. And down 27-20 at the start of the fourth quarter, Cousins faced a fourth and 4 from the Bucs 12. No, he won’t be juking linebackers out of their cleats. One advantage to rolling with a quarterback this age, however, is that Atlanta can stay in a hurry-up offense on fourth down to maximize matchups. Cousins got up to line and calmly connected with Mooney again on an out-breaker.
The slippery receiver ducked underneath a cornerback’s arm to scoot in for a touchdown.
A 7-10 Falcons team last year would’ve gone 10-7 with competent quarterback play. The gross miscalculation on Atlanta’s part was thinking Ridder could play the role of John Stockton. At one point, Arthur Smith even convinced longtime vet Calais Campbell to sign with the team by showing him rookie film of Ridder, by saying this was a quarterback who wouldn’t turn the ball over. Instead, the young quarterback’s recklessness directly led to at least three of those 10 losses.
From Blank down, the Falcons realized they need to win because of their quarterback, not in spite of.
Questions linger. This defense needs a lot of work.
Baker Mayfield was dominant in his own right most of the night.
If not for Jessie Bates punching the ball out of Bucky Irving’s grasp late, Atlanta likely loses this game. Then again, Bates was another big-ticket signing by Fontenot at $64 million over four years. The reason it’s smart to buy into the Falcons is the organizational structure. They’re run by an owner who’ll both spend money and let the football people make football decisions. Fontenot has spent the last two offseasons handing out lucrative contracts and now appears to be in lockstep with head coach Raheem Morris. Finally, the Falcons have a quarterback. They’re already getting more production out of this position than they have since Ryan’s record-setting 2017 campaign. Even though, Cousins was not happy with his bosses drafting Penix.
This is forever SEC Country but that ‘17 season, Atlanta rallied behind its pro football team. As those Falcons raced toward the Super Bowl behind Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, I caught up with the rapper behind the city’s unofficial anthem. Jermaine Dupri of “Welcome to Atlanta” fame performed at halftime of the Falcons’ NFC title win over Green Bay that season and he insisted the energy in the city was more “turnt up” than it ever was for the “Dirty Bird” Falcons of 1998 and the Michael Vick era.
When Hodge clinched this win on Thursday, the dome roared. Maybe there’s another level, even if the man fueling this Falcons run is an antique compared to Jamal Anderson flapping his wings, Vick hypnotizing defenses and Julio’s acrobatics.
Cousins is the father telling everyone nothing good happens after midnight.
Cousins doesn’t merely hold the door open for seniors entering Lowe’s. He’s the good neighbor guiding them to Aisle 37 Bay 9 to locate the correct brand of smoke detector.
Now, Cousins is also learning how to “Swag Surf.”
“The key is when the beat drops,” Cousins said after the win. “Initially it gets going, gets everybody in the stadium aware of it, but when the beat drops, that’s when it really gets going. It’s good energy.”
Inside the winner’s locker room, players mobbed and sprayed bottles of water.
Morris handed one game ball to Hodge and another to Cousins while shouting, “A new all-time passing record!” That’s when Fontenot stepped in with a third game ball and reminded everybody that, in another lifetime, Morris was the head coach of Tampa Bay. Easy to forget. Morris was only 33 years old when he took over those Buccaneers. He waited 13 years for this second chance. There the three men celebrated — GM, Head Coach, Quarterback — as everyone cheered.
It’s been a turbulent seven years since “28-3.”
But in that exact moment Thursday night, when the words of the coach were hardly audible over players screaming, the timing sure appeared perfect for these Atlanta Falcons.
ICYMI:
Tyler, Appreciate you keeping an eye on the Falcons and giving them some of your time. Great read, as everything you said rings true. As painful as it is to recall those events many years ago, they are a part of our journey as Atlanta Falcons fans. Nice to have Ryan in the building on Thursday and send him out a winner. What a great career that man had, Hall of Fame worthy. Now it's Cousins, who is as tough and as accurate as they come. Reminds me of a lot of Ryan, although not a carbon copy. Hope is alive in Atlanta, and just as it is for every team in the league, staying healthy will be paramount.
I watched Kirko Chains for too many years in Minnesota. Good for him on his early success, but he’s been playing at home mostly. At Minnesota, he was great during garbage time, good most of the time and will throw short of the sticks at the worst time. Nice fellow. B minus quarterback.