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Kirk Cousins was the starting quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons when they beat the Las Vegas Raiders 15-9 on Monday Night Football in Week 15. It was an important win for the Falcons because it improved their record to 7-7 and helped them keep pace with the 8-6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who currently own the top spot in the NFC South.
Though 7-7 is nothing to write home about, the Falcons do own the tiebreaker over the Buccaneers, and according to ESPN's Football Power Index projections, Atlanta does at least still have some playoff hope. Well, about 20% of it, at least.
One would think that playoff hope plus the four-year, $180 million contract (with about $100 million in guarantees) the Falcons gave Cousins this offseason would be enough to give him a chance to try to pull off this playoff miracle. On Tuesday, though, head coach Raheem Morris announced that rookie quarterback Michael Penix Jr. would be the starter for the rest of this season.
“After review we have made the decision Michael Penix will be the Atlanta Falcons starting quarterback moving forward,” Morris said in a statement on the team website. “This was a football decision, and we are fully focused on preparing the team for Sunday's game against the New York Giants.”
Morris called it a “football decision,” and on the surface, giving the No. 8 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft the reigns over a struggling veteran with three games left does make some football sense—if you were to go off numbers only, that is.
Cousins leads the league with 16 interceptions. He's thrown nine in his past five games, compared to just one touchdown. He's also fumbled 12 times this season. Overall, those are numbers that would get any quarterback benched, massive paycheck and veteran status not withstanding
So in that way, it does make sense that the Falcons want to give Penix a shot. He was a Heisman candidate at Washington and put up 9,544 yards and 67 touchdowns to just 19 interceptions in his two seasons with the Huskies. He also led them to the College Football Playoffs National Championship, where they ultimately fell to Jim Harbaugh's Michigan Wolverines.
Penix is a proven baller and winner, but he's also a rookie. So let's reframe that statement: He was a proven baller and winner in college. He was a great college quarterback, but he's proven nothing in the NFL so far. Sure, the Falcons want to give him this chance in hopes that he'll step up to the occasion and lead them to the promised land — or the playoffs, at the very least — but there are a few reasons to believe that this is not the right moment.
Why the Falcons should have stuck with Kirk Cousins
Forget Cousins' stats for the moment. They're putrid, but lost in the woods of those terrible numbers is a quarterback who does know how to win in this league. This is a guy who has been in the NFL since 2012, and he's played in some big games going back to his time with Washington and then the Minnesota Vikings. Yes, he's 1-4 in the playoffs as a starter, but the point here is that he's actually led teams to the playoffs.
With the Falcons walking the razor's edge to try to make it in 2014, perhaps tossing the quarterback with 13 years of experience in the waste bin is a bit of a short-sighted move.
Again, though, it's hard to defend Cousins' production — or lack thereof — in 2024. If we're calling this a “football decision,” though, there also has to be a recognition of the human and emotional element of this game.
The Falcons, knowingly or not, have told Penix that these ride-or-die next three games to maybe make the playoffs are all him. That's a big burden to carry for a rookie quarterback. Penix is 24 years old, so he's a bit older than some rookie quarterbacks – for instance, Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels are both 23 – but by going “all in” on Penix at this point of the season, the Falcons are basically saying that even the potential failures of this season are on him.
That's a risky game to play with a quarterback you spent a ton of draft capital on because there is story after story of young quarterbacks being “broken in” too early in the NFL, and that ends up killing their confidence and potential. Just look at Sam Darnold, who was essentially ruined by the New York Jets. He's had a career resurgence with the Minnesota Vikings, but he's also now seven years into his NFL career. Geno Smith would be another good example, too, and the list goes on and on.
It takes a while with quarterbacks, and the Falcons were “supposedly' on the Green Bay Packers' plan of drafting, stashing and developing a young and talented quarterback so that he could watch someone else take those lumps while they catch up to the speed of being a pro.
There's always the potential that Penix goes 3-0 in these next three games and a column like this looks too conservative and pessimistic. The major risk the Falcons are running, though, is that he looks like a rookie quarterback and goes 0-3 while tanking their hopes of making the playoffs.
Like it or not, Cousins would be a much better scapegoat in that scenario because he's not being billed as the long-term option in Atlanta. He can lose a few games and miss the playoffs and eventually, everyone would move on. If Penix doesn't succeed, though — and the odds suggest he's going to need some time to acclimate himself — he'll be taking a massive and unnecessary hit to his psyche. NFL history suggests that it will take quite a few years to recover from, if it ever does come back around at all.
