The Falcons laid bare their 2024 ceiling, even in a win over the Raiders

The Atlanta Falcons snapped a four-game losing streak on Monday night. Kirk Cousins, not coincidentally, snapped a four-game touchdown-less streak.

In the process, both the team and quarterback fixed nothing.

Atlanta’s 15-9 win over the Las Vegas Raiders was only sealed after a pair of Hail Marys caromed off the fingertips of Raider wideouts in the final seconds. This saved the ignominy of losing a game to Desmond Ridder, the former Falcon starter turned Las Vegas third-string quarterback who was forced into action in Week 15 thanks to injuries. It also showcased how poorly Atlanta’s Plan A has gone behind center.

Cousins is 36 years old but has seemingly aged a decade in the past 13 months. He was in the midst of one of his finest seasons in 2023 when a torn Achilles sealed his fate with the Minnesota Vikings. The Falcons happily signed him last March at the start of free agency, inking the veteran to a four year, $180 million deal with $90 million guaranteed.

It was a curious sign, then, when Atlanta used the eighth overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft to pick up Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr.. Penix wasn’t a young, low-floor developmental pick. He was the fourth quarterback off the board; a college veteran who’d be 24 years old before his rookie season began. It seemed like your run of the mill baffling Falcons decision at the time. Now it seems like the earliest warning sign Cousins’s new team didn’t trust his rehab process.

Indeed, that’s been the case. Cousins has been a statue in the pocket. Atlanta doesn’t trust him with long dropbacks. The play-action fakes that should be an absolute cheat code with Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier in the backfield have been an afterthought. His play-action rate has dropped from 31 percent in his final season as a Viking to 14 percent this fall.

Monday night gave us a good reason why the Falcons aren’t turning to basic trickery in the pass game. Cousins is struggling to execute even basic run-pass option handoffs.

I had to see Kirk Cousins fail to hand the ball off pic.twitter.com/DCopan6ufK

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) December 17, 2024

Mobility was never a hallmark of Cousins’s game, but it was an unsung ingredient that extended plays and allowed him to roll with pressure and find open receivers. That hasn’t been the case in 2024. He’s a statute in the pocket; after averaging 0.09 expected points added (EPA) per scramble between 2021 and 2023 that number is down to a brutal -0.41 EPA each time he’s forced to tuck and run in Atlanta.

This means less time to throw and fewer opportunities for a skilled young receiving corps to roll with him and create openings like Justin Jefferson and company did in the Twin Cities. This feeds into a vicious cycle.

Opponents know they can pressure Cousins with minimal manpower because he has little recourse but to step up in the pocket. So he’s left not just throwing early in his wideouts’ routes, but also against defenses happy to drop seven guys into coverage. As a result, his tight window throw rate — i.e. the amount of times he throws to covered targets — has spiked from 13.8 percent to a career-worst 19.6 in 2024.

That’s how you end up with something like this:

The Falcons had 24 first down plays Monday night. 23 of them were runs. Cousins’s lone first down pass — out of shotgun, with a three-step drop and slightly underthrown thanks to modest pressure right in his face — was also the QB’s lone interception on the night.

Highway robbery #ATLvsLV | ESPN pic.twitter.com/0PNdk23wmw

— Las Vegas Raiders (@Raiders) December 17, 2024

Atlanta won regardless, because it was playing a two-win Raiders team with a below average run defense. But the Falcons aren’t happy with the effort. See if you can sense a theme in head coach Raheem Morris’s postgame remarks.

“He’s got to play better,” said Morris. “He wants to play better. He’s got to play better. We’ve got to find a way to get him to play better. Obviously, we’ll get to work tomorrow and that’s a part of our process, right? You go and look at the tape, you review with the people it needs to be reviewed with. We’ll get all the coordinators in the room. We’ll talk with everybody and we’ve got to play better at the quarterback position.”

The problem with Week 15’s tape is it confirms what opponents already knew. Cousins can’t move like he used to.

It’s taking pages out of the playbook, forcing Atlanta to drastically reduce its plays under center and operate heavily out of pistol and shotgun snaps. That buys him space, but not necessarily time. With little to worry about when it comes to extending plays, opponents can opt to double the Falcons’ high profile playmakers and force an aging quarterback to zip throws into tight coverage — throws he can’t make as easily as he once did because he’s working on a freshly repaired Achilles and is 36 years old.

Atlanta is a game back of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for first place in the NFC South. Both teams have soft schedules. It’s not difficult to envision a nine- or even 10-win season in Cousins’s debut.

It will not be a success, however. The Falcons made a pricy gamble on Cousins and a pricy hedge months later by drafting Penix. Neither bet looks like it will pay out in 2024.