The Falcoholic
Cousins loves playing the Buccaneers.
Against all non-Tampa Bay Buccaneers opponents in 2024, Kirk Cousins has been pedestrian statistically, with a few standout stretches and putrid stretches mixed in. He’s got a bunch of 200ish yard game with six touchdowns and six interceptions in his six efforts against all other opponents, the kind of production the Falcons have gotten the past couple of years from lesser lights at quarterback. Atlanta is, perhaps fittingly, 3-3 against those opponents.
Against the Buccaneers, though? Cousins is a god. He is a slinger of meteors from galactic arms, sweeping fire and ruin down on Todd Bowles and his Tampa Bay defense. Cousins has risen to the occasion against the team most likely to battle Atlanta for a divisional title in 2024, and he has done so in fashion that deserves to be described in heroic and spectacular terms.
In two games, Cousins has nearly 800 yards through the air and eight touchdowns against a single interception. He has worked over the middle of the field like the great artists work in paints, and that continued in Week 8, where he threw for nearly 300 yards and four touchdowns without a single turnover, adding in a key 13 yard scramble and fourth down sneak. It’s no exaggeration—indeed, it is describing reality—to say that the Falcons don’t win those games without Cousins playing his surgical brand of football.
That’s why he is once again a fitting MVP for this one, as he piloted Atlanta to a hard-fought victory against the Buccaneers again, running the team’s record to 2-0 against them and securing a key head-to-head tiebreaker. There were virtually no mistakes from Cousins—maybe a high ball here, maybe a slight miss there—and reams of production that ensured the victory. This is Cousins in all his glory, and the version the Falcons hope to get on a more consistent basis going forward.
