Kirk Cousins and the Falcons’ offense are broken

Things are going great in Atlanta

The Falcons’ offense is broken. It isn’t getting fixed by Monday.

Kirk Cousins is 10 months removed from surgery to repair his torn Achilles, which has a 12 month recovery time. On Sunday he was all but unable to move in the pocket or drive the ball downfield with deep throws.

The Falcons can’t or won’t admit that their $100M guaranteed QB is damaged goods, and can’t or don’t want to further invite a QB controversy by starting 8th overall draft pick Michael Penix.

This is Cousins’ second pass attempt in the game, as as deep as he threw all day. He completes it, but look at his back leg, he puts virtually no weight on it.

This is just one play, but you don’t even need to have watched the game to know the Falcons know their QB isn’t right. Handcuffed by his immobile QB, Falcons OC Zac Robinson, in his first game as a play caller, used only a few pages of his playbook, making his offense hilariously predictable.

When you sign Kirk Cousins you’re signing up for an offense that operates mostly under center and relies on play action. That wasn’t the Falcons offense on Sunday. In 2022, no QB had more play action attempts than Kirk Cousins, and he was on track to top that again prior to getting hurt in 2023. On Sunday the Falcons did not call a single play action pass. Cousins was also under center at the highest rate of any starter in 2022 and 2023, on Sunday he was under center just once. Cousins didn’t attempt a pass of over 20 yards.

Kirk Cousins didn’t really play, he participated. He wasn’t the only Falcon to do so. Right tackle Caleb McGary had a nightmare of a game against TJ Watt, and the Falcons were content to leave him one on one for most of the game. Ray-Ray McCloud had more targets than Drake London and Kyle Pitts combined.

The Falcons will have to adjust their game plan for Monday, they have no choice. But the physical limitations of the QB will limit what they can do. Play action, bootleg, seven step drop, Cousins couldn’t or the Falcons wouldn’t have him do any of those against the Steelers, and forget about an RPO, even a fully healthy Cousins can’t run that. His inability to throw deep meant they couldn’t back the safeties off.

The Falcons knew this going into Sunday because they came out with that game plan, but their only in-game adjustment against the Steelers was to occasionally chip with a TE who doesn’t block. Getting the ball out quickly and running more is about all they can do, and it got them nowhere on Sunday. They had an 11-3 run to pass ratio in the second half, the closest they got to the end zone was the Steelers’ 42 yard line.

The Falcons’ offense is broken. The Eagles defense has to make them pay for their overpaid QB.