Why Kirk Cousins for the Falcons? Familiarity and fit figure in

Raheem Morris doesn’t just know Kirk Cousins, he knows what a player like Kirk Cousins can do.

When Kirk Cousins began his career, he did so as the backup to Robert Griffin III in Washington. While Raheem Morris was no longer in Washington when Cousins seized the full-time starting job and broke out in 2015, those three years gave Morris a chance to see a young, promising quarterback begin to find his way in the league in relief of Griffin, whose career was ultimately derailed by injury.

The next stop for Morris was Atlanta, where he spent a number of years coaching both sides of the ball and ultimately serving as the interim head coach after Dan Quinn’s 0-5 start to the 2020 season saw him canned. There, he saw the caliber of passing attack that Kyle Shanahan, Steve Sarkisian, and Dirk Koetter could do with Matt Ryan, the Falcons legend and one of the sharper passers of his generation.

At his next stop, Morris won a Super Bowl with Matthew Stafford at the helm of Sean McVay’s offense, once again seeing a team succeed (this time more than he ever had the opportunity to see in Washington or Atlanta) with a sharp, 30-plus passer working with a talented supporting cast. While Shanahan and McVay’s offenses are not the same, especially not after years to tinker and diverge, the similarities had to stand out to Morris.

In Atlanta again, Morris and his new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, who spent time working on the passing game and with quarterbacks in Los Angeles, now needed to find their next quarterback. There were a dozen roads they could have traveled to get there, but the one they chose is at once bold and familiar. For a coach who saw a pair of great pocket passers pilot his teams to Super Bowls, and for an offensive coordinator who was fresh off successful seasons with one of those quarterbacks, the choice seemed easy enough. It was time for Morris to go back to that once-young passer he saw over a decade ago in Washington: Kirk Cousins.

Why Cousins?

It’s overly simplistic to suggest that Morris and Robinson wanted their own Matt Ryan or Matthew Stafford to pilot the offense, but I don’t think it’s at all inaccurate. The fact that the Rams just won a Super Bowl in 2021 and enjoyed a surprisingly successful season in 2023 despite years of shackled cap and limited draft picks with Stafford clearly made an outsized impression on both coaches and had them looking for a player who could deliver as an accurate passer and veteran leader with what should be a very capable supporting cast.

The logical choice, if you’re looking for those qualities, is a player you know who has worked in a system similar to the one you intend to run. Cousins checks those boxes because he knows Morris, even it’s not particularly well, and because the Kevin O’Connell offense he was running in Minnesota will likely bear a striking resemblance to the one Robinson will be running in Atlanta, given that both coaches have worked closely with McVay. Cousins does not have the arm talent that Stafford brings to bear—and is not, in my humble opinion, the same caliber of player as either Ryan or Stafford—but has a proven track record of playing well in an offense that heavily relies on accuracy, timing, and play action excellence. That’s essentially what he’ll be asked to do in Atlanta under Robinson, if history is our guide.

So familiarity is a core reason the Falcons ultimately went and signed Cousins. If you take that out of the equation, you land on:

• Cousins’ core skillset, which I mentioned above. He’s an accurate passer with a good sense of timing who has worked to become better at some of the things he used to be shaky at, including keeping a play alive and not making panicky decisions under pressure. He is never going to have an elite skill set, but he’s a very good pocket passer who had a knack for maximizing the weapons he had in Minnesota. It probably was not difficult for Morris and Robinson to see him playing well in Atlanta, given the offense already built for him and what Robinson wants from his quarterbacks.
• He’s a player the team can rely on and is excited about. I don’t think anyone had to put Kyle Pitts up to recruiting Cousins once it became clear he was on the team’s radar; this was about Pitts coveting Cousins’ ability to run a passing attack and his locker room presence. Vikings who played with Cousins have talked about that last piece, and there’s little doubt that Cousins commands the kind of respect and has the kind of ability to lead a team that the Falcons were lacking in the past couple of years, no matter how much teammates might have liked Mariota, Ridder, or Heinicke. The fact that Cousins has the ability to unlock bigger and better things for Pitts, London, and new teammate Darnell Mooney doesn’t just appeal to fans and the coaching staff, but the players themselves.
• The contract is expensive, but it’s not the backbreaking four-year pact that it appears to be at a glance. The Falcons were able to structure it in such a way that Cousins is fairly affordable in 2024 and expensive but not stupidly expensive in 2025, allowing them to keep building the team. Those last two years feature a costly-but-not-impossible out and then a more reasonable one, should Cousins fall off or the Falcons unearth a long-term starter they’re eager to get into the lineup. It’s basically one affordable year, one expensive year, and the possibility of more if the Falcons and Cousins want to keep the good times rolling.
• Finally, and perhaps cynically, Cousins was simply the best option the Falcons felt they could reasonably get. Despite early rumors, the interest in Justin Fields was apparently not there, and the cost to trade up and options available did not align in a way that the Falcons felt made sense, judging by the fact that they…well, they didn’t decide to do it. Cousins was the best quarterback available, cost and age and Achilles injury be damned, and

What are the potential downsides?

We’ve touched on these items briefly in the past and will likely have occasion to do so again in the future, but there are a few that spring readily to mind:

• Cousins is older. He has not shown any signs of slowing down—quite the contrary—but he is coming off the most significant injury of his NFL career and relatively few quarterbacks stay great into their late 30s. Cousins has never been overly reliant on his physical tools, but any decline in arm strength, processing speed, and even mobility will quickly cut into his production and upside. That decline is likely to hit before the end of his contract, at the very least.
• Cousins is coming off a significant injury. The Falcons expect him to be fully healthy, per the NFL Network’s Cameron Wolfe, but it is difficult not to worry that Cousins will be more susceptible to injuries of that kind as he gets older. It’s also fair to worry that he won’t be 100% right out of the gate, even if he and the team seem optimistic, which could have early season ramifications for a team that desperately wants to win right now. There just are no sure things with injuries for older players.
• Cousins is not an elite quarterback. This is obvious to everyone, including the Falcons, but it’s worth mentioning that the Falcons did not just acquire one of the great quarterbacks in the league in the prime of his career. The Falcons are hoping to capture some of that Matthew-Stafford-to-the-Rams magic with this acquisition, but while Cousins raises the floor significantly for Atlanta, his crunchtime play is a mixed bag and he is not known for his ability to carry a team injuries mount and the stakes rise. The fact that he’s damn good means the Falcons should be a much better team in the short-term, but whether he’ll make the massive difference for this franchise that I think they envision remains to be seen.

Why did Cousins choose Atlanta?

This one’s easy to figure out, actually. When the connection was just “hey, Kirk Cousins’ wife is from the area!” it was easy to be skeptical. When Cousins sees a familiar offense filled with playmakers, gets to be near family in a city he’s clearly fond of, and gets a massive contract to do that, the appeal is easier to see.

And that’s what Cousins talked about in his opening press conference: The appeal of the area, the strong fit he sees with the team, and yes, his familiarity with Raheem Morris and the offensive scheme. For a player heading into what might be the final stretch of a productive career, the chance to plug into a built-up offense that will play to his strengths has to be appealing, and it appears it was for Cousins.

The Falcons were clearly eager to get this done, and Cousins was clearly eager to come to Atlanta. If the next two-to-four seasons see that combination propel this franchise back into relevance and perhaps much more than that, that eagerness will prove fortunate indeed. Either way, the familiarity and fit on both sides should create optimism that this thing will work out in the short-term.