Shortly after the Atlanta Falcons improved to 7-7 on the season via a nervy 15-9 win over the lowly Las Vegas Raiders (2-12) on Monday night, Falcons head coach Raheem Morris directly said that Kirk Cousins has “got to play better.”
Cousins didn’t disagree with Morris’ assessment following yet another shaky outing from the veteran quarterback.
“Yeah, I think I do need to play better,” Cousins said during his postgame comments, as shared by Grant Gordon of the NFL’s website. “I don’t think that’s a mystery. I think the last few weeks I would say I need to play better. Raheem says it, but it’s stating the obvious, and every week you kind of go through your process and you plan to go out there and play the very best you can, and so this week will be no different.”
Cousins tossed eight interceptions and zero touchdown passes over four consecutive defeats before he produced another dud at Allegiant Stadium. Versus the Raiders, the 36-year-old completed just 11-of-17 pass attempts for 112 yards with a touchdown and a pick.
Per ESPN stats, Cousins has now thrown a league-worst 16 interceptions on the season. He ended Week 15 of the campaign ranked 22nd in the NFL among qualified players with a 52.7 adjusted QBR and tied for 14th with 18 touchdown passes.
Needless to say, the Falcons likely expected more from Cousins when they signed him to a four-year, $180M contract that included $100M guaranteed this past offseason.
Cousins added that he feels he must improve his “decision-making” and avoid “trying to be too aggressive” in certain instances. Meanwhile, Morris teased for the first time amid Cousins’ struggles that the club could turn to rookie signal-caller Michael Penix Jr. for Atlanta’s upcoming home game against a woeful New York Giants (2-12) side that could be one loss away from blowing things up.
“You know we’ve got everybody on our roster for a reason,” Morris interestingly said after the win over Las Vegas. “We’ve got so much to get better at, and those things will always be discussed. That’s just the nature of the beast in football. It’s just so heavily talked about at the quarterback position because there’s only one guy out there. So for us, man, our mentality is to find a way to win the next game. That’s just the mentality that we’re going to have.”
The Falcons trail only the 8-6 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC South standings, and Atlanta beat Tampa Bay twice earlier in the season. As of Tuesday morning, the NFL’s website gave the Falcons a 36 percent chance to make the playoffs.
Also on Tuesday, DraftKings Sportsbook listed Atlanta as an 8.5-point favorite over the Giants. It will be interesting to see if that line moves whenever Morris confirms his starting quarterback for the matchup versus Big Blue.
