Newly signed quarterback Kirk Cousins and the Atlanta Falcons are currently in the process of preparing for the upcoming 2023-24 NFL season by participating in minicamp at the team's facilities in Flowery Branch, Georgia. Cousins was one of the most high profile signings of any team this offseason, and the Falcons in typical Atlanta fashion immediately alienated their new franchise quarterback by drafting another quarterback, Michael Penix Jr., in the first round without informing Cousins first.
In any case, there is still plenty of optimism for Falcons fans going into this season after the team appeared to be a competent quarterback away from being truly competitive a season ago thanks to their improved defense and the emergence of some of their young offensive talent.
One of those talented offensive stars is wide receiver Drake London, who is entering his third season out of USC and appears very excited from what he's experienced working alongside Cousins so far.
“Ball going to be in the air,” said London when asked about how the Falcons' offense will be different in 2024, per Will McFadden of the Falcons on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.
Another young star for the Falcons is rookie running back Bijan Robinson, who mostly had a strong first season in the NFL a year ago and envisions himself taking a huge leap forward in 2024.
“I'm going to be more of a runner — that [also] does everything else,” Robinson said, per Marc Raimondi of ESPN. “… It's like I did college, [a runner] and then still having that access to go to receiver, still having access to do creative things out of the backfield, more so like how they use Christian (McCaffrey) down there in San Francisco.”
If the Falcons could indeed get Christian McCaffrey-like production out of Robinson while simultaneously introducing an aerial element to the offense, they could become one of the more dangerous teams in what figures to be a less than impressive NFC playoff picture.
How far can the Falcons go?
As previously mentioned, the Falcons actually showed quite a bit of improvement in 2023-24, particularly on defense; however, it's worth considering that the team hardly played any above average quarterbacks during the season, calling into some question how much of the team's relatively solid defensive stats were actually because of, well, the defense.
Still, there's no question that the main reason for the team once again missing out on the playoffs in 2023 was the play of quarterback Desmond Ridder, who proved that he is not a starting caliber quarterback at the NFL level and found himself benched on numerous occasions throughout the year.
This desperation, combined with growing angst from the fanbase, likely played a large role in the Falcons' willingness to swing big in free agency by signing Cousins, who is coming off of an Achilles tear but is one of the league's better quarterbacks when healthy.
In any case, the Falcons' season will get underway vs the Pittsburgh Steelers at home in early September.
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