Kirk Cousins talks Kyle Pitts recruitment, excitement over landing in Atlanta

Atlanta’s new quarterback met the media and made a good first impression, with one hiccup.

The Atlanta Falcons could make it official Wednesday afternoon that Kirk Cousins was their new starting quarterback, and they were happy to do so. The announcement came earlier today after the official beginning of the new NFL league year, and then Cousins had the opportunity to meet with media and field questions.

With the exception of one hiccup that we’ll get to late in this story, he made a good first impression. Cousins made it clear that he’s ready to help this team win, that he expects to be healthy, and that he’s ready to help Atlanta’s young stars on offense shine in a way they hadn’t been able to the past couple of seasons.

You can watch the whole thing below if you’d like, but here are a few takeaways.

Cousins believes he’s recovering from Achilles injury well

One of the big question marks for Cousins, who has been healthy throughout his career, concerns the Achilles injury that ended his 2023 season. Given that Cousins will be 36 years old this year, it was fair to wonder how quickly that recovery would go.

We’ll need to see on the practice field and ultimately on gameday, but Cousins was clear that he thinks he’ll be on track for everything he needs to do by training camp, which is music to our ears.

Age won’t go away as a concern for Cousins—it doesn’t with any quarterback—but if he’s fully healthy by the start of the season that erases one of our big worries. A healthy Cousins is, after all, a pretty damn good quarterback.

Kyle Pitts was an eager recruiter

It would be fair to argue that no one on Atlanta’s offense has been harmed more by poor quarterback play the last two seasons than Pitts. While injury certainly impacted him in each of the past two seasons, the fact that Marcus Mariota and Desmond Ridder threw so many off-target balls to Pitts had to be extremely frustrating for a player who had over 1,000 yards receiving as a rookie.

In light of that, it’s little surprise that Pitts decided to make a big push to get Cousins in Atlanta. By the sounds of it, he did just that.

The duo also discussed Pitts’ No. 8, which is the same number Cousins wore in Minnesota, and there’s not a resolution yet on who will wear which number. But Cousins offered to make a donation to charity in exchange for the number if they do swap, and Pitts responded that he wants targets. That was played as a joke, but after the past couple of seasons, I’m not entirely sure it was one.

Cousins says he recruited Darnell Mooney to Atlanta

Pretty self-explanatory, but also an important note, given that Cousins very clearly wanted to have Mooney to throw to. The speedy receiver saw his production dip significantly over the past two seasons in Chicago, where he was victimized by the addition of D.J. Moore, a lousy and dysfunctional passing offense, and off-target downfield throws. Cousins is clearly hoping that Mooney can be his Jordan Addison on the Falcons, while Mooney is clearly excited about being a larger part of a better passing attack.

ProFootballTalk raises the tampering flag

Not to end this positive article on a sour note, but the Falcons might be in trouble with the league if Mike Florio and ProFootballTalk are correct.

Florio is very obviously angry that his reporting about Cousins, especially regarding Cousins having early contact with Kyle Pitts about jersey numbers, was called into question by…well, Kyle Pitts.

It certainly looks like Florio had a good lead there now, and thus he has extra motivation to zero in on any possible wrongdoing from the Falcons. Besides not-so-lightly implying that Pitts may have been recruiting Cousins at the behest of the team, a definite no-no that Florio seems to have no evidence for, he points to the team’s new quarterback appearing to say that he met with or had a call with Atlanta’s head athletic trainer yesterday, which was of course before the new league year.

Unfortunately for the Falcons and for us, the NFL might take this seriously. If the league determines this was an out-in-the-open, open-and-shut case of the not-allowed tampering, they could dock the team a draft pick, as they’ve done to other teams in the past. We’ll have to hope that doesn’t wind up being the case; for what it’s worth, you can probably find some ambiguity in what Cousins said if you want to, and the league does not ever seem particularly eager to punish teams here if they don’t have to.

You know what, let’s not end the article on a sour note. Here’s a positive one.

Cousins seems legitimately excited to be here

The money talked, yes, but so did the franchise and the location. Cousins’ wife is from the area—that was noted as a selling point for a move to the Falcons, and despite my initial dismissal of that being a major factor, it seems it was. Cousins’ family ties and fond memories in Georgia appear to have given him added incentive, at the very least.

But it’s the on-field stuff that really matters to all of the Falcons fans who have been waiting on a winning season for far too long, and Cousins appears to be jazzed about that, too. He singled out the team’s young stars—Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and ace recruiter Pitts—as players who are “sharp.” They’re likely excited to work with him, too, given the state of quarterback in Atlanta over the past couple of seasons.

Opening press conference excitement may not mean much, but Cousins’ ability does, and he’s apparently well on his way to being healthy and certainly a significant upgrade at the league’s most important position. If he and the team’s young stars can gel, this offense should be as threatening as we badly want it to be, and that’s definitely worth getting excited about.