MINNEAPOLIS — It was tempting Sunday, especially in this building against this team, to say the Atlanta Falcons have a Kirk Cousins Problem, but that’s inaccurate. The Atlanta Falcons have a Bad Football Problem. Their $180 million quarterback is part of that problem, but it’s impossible to put all of this team’s problems on his shoulders.
The Falcons (6-7) were embarrassed 42-21 by Cousins’ former team, the Minnesota Vikings, at U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday. They have lost four straight games and fallen out of first place in the NFC South thanks to Tampa Bay’s 28-13 win over the Raiders that moved the Buccaneers to 7-6.
“Ain’t nobody coming to save us,” Falcons safety Jessie Bates III said. “We’ve just got to play better.”
A lot better.
• Atlanta gave up four completions of more than 40 yards, including two that resulted in Vikings wide receivers walking into the end zone while a Falcons defensive back lay sprawled on the turf.
“We just have to make more plays when the ball is in the air,” Bates said. “There are no excuses for those deep balls. We have to get better.”
DARNOLD JETTAS 52-YARD TD 🚨
📺: #ATLvsMIN on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO8ZBqG pic.twitter.com/ZywUjIuoD4— NFL (@NFL) December 8, 2024
Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold, who is playing on a one-year, $10 million deal, threw a career-high five touchdown passes versus only seven incompletions.
Falcons defenders came into the game saying they had to limit Minnesota’s explosive plays, which had been an Atlanta strength. Coming in, the Falcons were seventh in the league in explosive play rate allowed (10.3 percent). Minnesota had an explosive play (a pass of longer than 16 yards or a run of longer than 12 yards) on 21.4 percent of its snaps Sunday, the fourth-highest rate of any team in a game this season, according to TruMedia.
“We gave them big play after big play today,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said. “We have to get better.”
• The Falcons were 2-for-5 in the red zone, which explains how they could gain 496 yards and score only 21 points. They are 26th in the league in red zone efficiency (48.8 percent). During their losing streak, they are 30th, scoring touchdowns on only 30.8 percent of their red zone trips.
“Hasn’t been our best suit all year long,” said wide receiver Darnell Mooney, who had six catches for a career-high 142 yards.
• The Falcons had a season-high 12 penalties worth 127 negative yards. No team has lost more yardage to penalties in a game this season, according to TruMedia. Seven of the penalties were called against the offense, and all of those seemed to come at critical times.
The penalties “crushed us,” Morris said. “You can’t really talk about penalties, and I won’t. It was the same officials for those guys, and if they didn’t get those penalties, we must be doing something wrong. What we had was a lack of discipline and lack of body control.”
• After giving the ball to the Vikings three times Sunday — twice on interceptions by Cousins and once on a Ray-Ray McCloud III fumble — the Falcons are last in the league in turnover margin since Week 10, which coincides with their four-game losing streak. In that span, they have turned the ball over nine times and forced only one.
And then there’s Cousins, who is responsible for most of those turnovers. He has thrown eight interceptions and no touchdown passes in his last four games. Until this season, he had never gone more than two straight games without a touchdown pass.
Still, Morris said he doesn’t plan to replace Cousins with rookie Michael Penix Jr.
“Everything is always discussed, but Kirk Cousins is our quarterback,” Morris said. “Kirk played significantly better than he did the week before. We will do whatever is best to win football games, and Kirk’s got a big part of that. We didn’t handle the moment well as a team. We didn’t play well enough for him. Kirk came out and did a nice job of trying to get us a win, and we did not support him today.”
Kirko to Mooney for 52 yards!
📺: #ATLvsMIN on FOX
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/amYIDkKRx7— NFL (@NFL) December 8, 2024
Cousins finished 23-for-37 for 344 yards, no touchdowns and two interceptions. In the Falcons’ two previous blowout losses, Morris inserted Penix late in the game. He didn’t do it Sunday because it was a homecoming game for Cousins, who played six seasons in Minnesota before coming to Atlanta.
“Not today,” Morris said, “wanted (Cousins) to go finish this deal out here in Minnesota.”
Cousins leads the NFL in interceptions with 15, the most he’s thrown in a single season in his 13-year career. When told that Morris said he played better than last week, the quarterback quipped, “Last week was a low bar.”
“But I felt better today,” he said. “I felt more like myself.”
The Vikings crowd booed Cousins when he emerged from the tunnel before the game and again as he took the field for the Falcons’ first possession.
“It’s a great fan base,” he said. “I expected them to make it hostile, and they did a good job with that.”
Cousins and Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell shared a short postgame conversation.
“He just said he was grateful for me, and I said the same,” Cousins said. “He’s a great coach and he’s done a great job this year.”
“I love him as a person,” O’Connell said. “I think he’s a great human being, great father, great person. He stands for so many great things that I always really valued. I’m proud of the way he’s transitioned down to a new place this year, and he’s had a lot of success. I think he’s going to continue to do so.”
The Falcons have to hope so. Otherwise, their season will be lost.
“In pro football, you get tested, and we’re there right now,” Cousins said. “We just have to keep playing and see where the dust settles in January.”
(Photo: Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
