Falcons now must decide what the future looks like at quarterback

Atlanta’s set for the short-term, but the importance of having a succession plan is difficult to overstate.

The Atlanta Falcons have accounted for the present. For the first time since shipping Matt Ryan out of town—and arguably before then, depending on how much you think Ryan had declined before he left—the Falcons have a solidly above-average player at quarterback. The next two-to-three years are set, barring catastrophe, and Kirk Cousins will be under center and hoping to lead a resurgent Falcons offense to greater glory.

The future, however, is very much in flux. When the Falcons shipped out Desmond Ridder for Rondale Moore this past week, they traded away the only semi-plausible post-Cousins option on the roster, and I know semi-plausible is probably pushing it there. The only other quarterback now on the roster is Taylor Heinicke, who the coaching staff appears to like but is on the wrong side of 30 and unlikely to last longer in Atlanta than Cousins, if he even winds up in a Falcons jersey by Week 1.

There are costs to not having a long-term plan at quarterback, something the Falcons found out the hard way very recently. From the Marcus Mariota-to-Ridder-to-Heinicke carousel in Atlanta, to the post-Tom Brady scuffles of Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe in New England, to the Andy Dalton-to-Jameis-Winston-to-Derek Carr switch-up in New Orleans, teams generally find the sailing rough when a franchise legend is gone and you have to replace him. Having a long-term plan is neither easy nor common.

But the Falcons should consider making it a priority, perhaps as soon as this year. We’ve seen firsthand what happens when you are the Kansas City Chiefs or the Buffalo Bills, who have the luxury of starting a capable veteran for a year while they let their ultra high-upside quarterbacks adjust to the NFL. We know well that the Packers appear to have perfected their approach, which involves allowing young quarterbacks to sit for multiple years behind high-end starters and counting on them being ready when the time comes. What those franchise have in common, at least over the past 5-10 years, is that they are among the league’s more successful, consistently winning franchises, and the continuity at quarterback is an incredibly vital piece of that.

Atlanta doesn’t have to make that investment this year, as there will be good quarterbacks available in the draft in 2025 and beyond. But this is a spring where a handful of intriguing options are expected to be available in the second and maybe even third round, with Washington’s Michael Penix (who has the arm and smarts to intrigue offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, Oregon’s Bo Nix, South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler, and even Texas’s Quinn Ewers possibly being available beyond the first round. There’s no guarantee the Falcons like any of those players, but if they do, it would be foolish to pass one up. Atlanta owes it to themselves to follow Terry Fontenot’s state preference for plugging holes in the run-up to the draft so that if the quarterback is the most valuable player available to them in the second round (or third, if you prefer Rattler, perhaps), they can feel comfortable making that selection.

The value of that isn’t hard to understand. Most quarterbacks are thrown right into the fire and most fail, but we know from Ridder’s career arc to this point that sitting for a bit is no guarantee of success. Still, if there’s a player you believe in and you have the developmental staff in place to enhance that guy’s strengths and work on his weaknesses, plus the luxury of not having to rush to play him unless injury crops up for your starter, you have a runway to a brighter future. A quarterback with a couple of seasons in your system and working with your roster is inherently more prepared to take over than a quarterback pressed into action the year he’s drafted.

Atlanta also has to remember that their path to a high-end rookie quarterback may not be an easy one down the line. If Cousins is as good as we’re expecting slash hoping he will be, the Falcons will not be in a great position to draft a quarterback in 2025 or 2026, leaving them potentially moving on from an aging quarterback and having to find yet another veteran stopgap option. Look around at teams like the Broncos, Vikings, Buccaneers, and Raiders who are trying to navigate that particular reality for one reason or another, or teams like the Jets who may soon join them. “Desperate for a quarterback” is never where you want to be, and while the Falcons are hopefully all set for the short term while Raheem Morris and company try to get this team back to legitimately contending, “desperate for a quarterback” is never all that far away.

The Falcons would do well to remember what happened when they didn’t have a good plan for Matt Ryan’s departure, something we urged them to work on for years before that trade. If the right quarterback is available on the draft’s second day, I hope the Falcons will make a move to secure the future of the quarterback position for that time in 2026 or 2027 when Cousins is no longer the plan of the present.