A few unhappy Falcons fans booed Kirk Cousins when his third-down pass hit the turf at the feet of an open receiver early in Sunday’s game. A larger group of dissatisfied supporters heckled Cousins when he nearly threw an interception in the end zone and missed his target on back-to-back plays. The jeers were loud and widespread at Mercedes-Benz Stadium after Cousins followed a pick-six in the second half with an interception in the end zone.
Arthur Blank’s customers were right to let Cousins have it. He signed for $100 million guaranteed to become the team’s missing piece. Now he’s become its biggest problem. This wasn’t just one bad day. Cousins hasn’t been good enough for three straight games, all Falcons losses.
His four-interception performance during the 17-13 loss to the Chargers on Sunday was the worst of them all.
“It hurts when you feel like your defense played winning football, you feel like your special teams made big plays, the run game did a solid job,” Cousins said. “I’ve got to play better. You take responsibility and go back and have to look at it with a critical eye and talk about, ‘OK, how can I make sure this never happens again.’”
After the NFL’s afternoon games on Sunday, Cousins was tied with Geno Smith for most interceptions in the league (13). Cousins is on pace to finish with 24 touchdown passes. That would be his fewest in a full season since he became a starter in 2015. Cousins is trending in the wrong direction as the Falcons (6-6) try to win the NFC South. He’s thrown six interceptions and no touchdowns during the three-game losing streak.
Cousins said he doesn’t view those performances as a pattern
“It’s not any one thing that’s showing up every game,” he said. “You just have to go back and try to become better as player. A tough game like this gives you certainly the opportunity to do that.”
It’s hard for Cousins to play much worse than he did against the Chargers. It’s been more than a decade since he had four interceptions in a game. He did it while playing for Washington during a blowout loss against the Giants in September 2014. This time Cousins’ four interceptions cost the Falcons in a close game.
The defense kept giving Cousins more chances and he kept squandering them. His final failure was an interception on fourth down in the final minute. Cousins was so bad that Raheem Morris fielded questions about playing backup Michael Penix, the No. 8 overall pick in this year’s draft.
Morris said he never considered making the switch during the game and will stick with Cousins for next weekend’s game at the Vikings (10-2).
“We won’t make any excuses for (the interceptions),” Morris said. “That happened today. The guy has carried us all season. He’s done such a marvelous job (that) it’s hard to throw that guy under the bus, right?”
There’s no benefit in Morris publicly trashing Cousins. He also can’t bench him prematurely. That could cause more problems than it solves, especially since Penix may not be ready. The rookie barely played during the exhibition season and has taken no meaningful snaps in games that count.
But Cousins might force Morris’ hand with another poor outing against the Vikings. They entered the weekend ranked fifth in scoring defense. The Chargers were No. 1.
Asked about Morris sticking with him, Cousins said: “There’s no entitlement in the NFL. You have to go earn it. And if it ever was that, I wouldn’t want it. I need to play at a level that justifies being out there.”
Cousins didn’t do that on Sunday. Chargers defensive backs repeatedly read his eyes to make plays on the ball. Cousins had 39 pass attempts. The Chargers batted away 10 of them and intercepted four.
The Falcons opened the scoring by ending their streak of drives without a touchdown at 15. Cousins gave back those points in the third quarter when rookie Taheeb Still ran back an interception 61 yards for a touchdown. That score gave the Chargers the lead for good.
Said Cousins: “It was just a poor decision. ...I should have just let (the play) develop a little longer, feel that ‘OK, it’s covered’ and let it progress.”
Cousins’ third interception of the game was nearly as costly. The Falcons stopped a fake to set up the offense at the Chargers’ 39-yard line. They earned a first-and-goal when Cousins converted a fourth down with a pass to Drake London.
But Cousins tried throwing a pass into a crowd of defenders on third down. Chargers safety Marcus Maye secured the ball in the back of the end zone before stepping out of bounds. Cousins said he was attempting to throw a jump ball for London.
“Got to throw the ball out of the back of the end zone,” Morris said. “The end of the game, you’re trying to win that thing, and you’re trying to fit it into a tight window.”
The Falcons’ defense gave Cousins one more chance to win by forcing a punt. Cousins got the ball at the 6-yard line with 6:05 to play. His fourth down pass for Bijan Robinson was a yard short of the first-down marker, but the Chargers bailed the Falcons out with a holding penalty. The Falcons got lucky again when Cousins fumbled after getting sacked and teammate Drew Dalman recovered at the Chargers’ 44-yard line.
The Falcons faced a fourth-and-12 when Cousins tried to zip a pass to London. Safety Derwin James intercepted it. The Falcons came out of their bye week with another loss.
“This wasn’t a debacle,” Morris said. “This wasn’t one of those things we had before the bye. This is where have to get one phase of game that we’ve got to fix.”
The problem for the Falcons is the one thing they need to fix is the $100 million quarterback who was supposed to fix them.
