Falcons’ Plan B is Kirk Cousins, which isn’t the most hopeful plan

What might have been a moment of validation has instead cut the brake lines on a station wagon wildly careening down a dirt road into the valley of despair.

Monday’s distressing news was that Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. was placed on injured reserve for at least four games. It would be no surprise if it turned out to be the rest of the season. WSB-TV’s Zach Klein reported that Penix suffered a partial ACL tear in Sunday’s overtime loss to the Carolina Panthers.

The upshot is that the spiraling Falcons — they of the five consecutive losses and playoff probability measurable only in micrometers — now turn to Kirk Cousins, the high-priced quarterback who was retained last offseason because it was thought he would be an excellent (if expensive) backup to Penix but has proved to be anything but.

Unless the Cousins we’ve seen in spots this season was merely a mirage, it looks like we’re about to watch a seven-game testimony of another Falcons decision gone wrong.

Signed in March 2024 to be the franchise quarterback at a cost of $90 million guaranteed (he deposited another $10 million as a roster bonus in March), Cousins essentially gave the Falcons 14 starts last season before he was benched, with his performance nosediving because of injuries to his shoulder and elbow.

While Cousins could have been released with Penix’s ascension at the end of last season, Falcons leadership decided to hold on to him, with the idea that it wanted to receive at least some return on the contract that it gave him, either by trading him or keeping him.

If that meant Cousins would be a starter-grade backup (if an exorbitantly paid one) and insurance policy against a Penix injury, then that’s how it would be.

“We still feel very strongly about Kirk being our backup quarterback,” Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said at the NFL’s annual meetings in April. “We still feel very strongly about the human, still feel very strongly about where he stands right now.”

Said owner Arthur Blank at the same meetings, “We owe it to our fan base and our franchise to make sure that we have a backup quarterback who can step in and play.”

For what it’s worth, it was a plan that I supported, the primary argument being that it wasn’t likely that Penix would start all 17 games, as few NFL quarterbacks do. For a team that probably wasn’t going to have much margin for error, wouldn’t it make sense to have — this is where my line of thinking maybe had one too many margaritas — the best possible option waiting in the wings?

It looked like a sound decision in the preseason, when it appeared Cousins might even have been outplaying Penix. And it made sense when Penix was unable to start against the Miami Dolphins because of a bone bruise in his left knee, forcing Morris to turn to Cousins.

I thought there was a chance Cousins could play so well that it could create an awkward dynamic once Penix was healthy.

And then the game started.

As it turned out, a 37-year-old quarterback with a significant injury history who never had a strong arm to start with isn’t quite the option he was thought to be.

By the numbers

In three appearances, he has completed 32 of 52 attempts for 250 yards. That’s 4.8 yards per attempt, which is not a rate consistent with winning. Since 2021, there have been 39 games in which a quarterback attempted at least 20 passes and had a YPA between 4.7 and 4.9, according to Stathead. The record was 4-34-1. (If you’re wondering, no, the four wins weren’t at the Falcons’ expense.)

Of Cousins’ 52 attempts, 15 have gone 10 yards or more past the line of scrimmage and he has completed five. It’s an admittedly tiny sample size, but no quarterback who has thrown more than five passes in that category this season has a lower completion percentage on those throws.

And, remember, Cousins was the highest-paid free agent of the 2024 offseason.

He didn’t make it a full season before his faltering play compelled being replaced by Penix. Then he was retained to be a superior backup. And now, apparently in place to run the offense for the final seven games of the season, there’s little reason to think he can do that well, either.

In short, the decision to sign him and then to keep him have proven to be colossal mistakes by general manager Terry Fontenot and Morris. Rarely has $100 million been so poorly spent.

The Falcons are 3-7. In an alternative universe, one where the Falcons didn’t regularly botch games and Cousins was the quarterback they planned on him being, they might be 6-4 and handing the keys to their healthy and capable backup.

Of the seven remaining games, four are against teams (the Saints twice, Jets and Cardinals) with a combined record of 7-23. Surely, Cousins could drive the bus the rest of the way and get the Falcons to the playoffs.

That, of course, is not the universe we inhabit. In a season begun with postseason expectations, the Falcons have a 98.9% probability of missing the playoffs for an eighth consecutive year.