Coming off of a disastrous Week 1 performance, tons of fans and analysts were left with a plethora of questions regarding the Atlanta Falcons’ regular season debut.
Atlanta suffered an ugly 18-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers this past Sunday, with the Falcons offense in particular looking completely out of whack. One person who took note of this horrific display was none other than current CBS Sports analyst and future hall-of-famer Matt Ryan – who is a very familiar face to the Falcons organization. Ryan joined the “Pushing The Pile” podcast on Monday and shared his thoughts on what he believes went wrong for the Falcons.
Former #Falcons QB Matt Ryan gives his thoughts on Atlanta’s Week 1 performance:
— Bryce Lewis (@Bryce_Lewis86) September 10, 2024
“Not only him [Kirk Cousins], but I thought the entire offense looked out of sync. The problem is, they’re going against Pittsburgh’s defense, you’ve got a first time play-caller in Zac Robinson… pic.twitter.com/VHhA3ZpO9h
Ryan hits the nail on the head and points out the elephant in the room when discussing preseason reps, as the former MVP mentions how the offense looked a little bit rusty. Throughout Week 1, it seemed like a handful of team’s had poor offensive showings, which could be a factor of multiple starters across the league not participating in the preseason this past August. For the Falcons, however, maybe those preseason reps could have been used to get some sort of a rhythm going and shake the rust off early on – especially being a brand-new unit. The coaching staff was reluctant to start any of Atlanta’s starters, as mitigating injuries was a major priority.
All throughout the game, Atlanta’s offense struggled pretty badly. The offensive line had a very disheartening day trying to stop pass-rusher T.J. Watt, there were costly penalties and turnovers, Drake London and Kyle Pitts were barely featured in the passing attack and the offensive play calling from offensive coordinator Zac Robinson was uninspiring. The outcome was most certainly not the one that the Falcons had hoped for to start the season.
Most of those issues don’t seem to be as huge of a topic at the moment, however. What’s currently dominating the discussions after the game is the concern for the man under center – or not, I guess – Kirk Cousins and where he stands in terms of his health.
We all know Cousins is returning from an Achilles injury that he suffered last year, with Sunday afternoon being his first time in live game action since that aforementioned injury. Throughout the game, Cousins looked totally immobile and you would have mistaken him for the Statue of Liberty with how little he was moving when he had the ball in his hands. Multiple analysts have pointed out the lack of power in Cousins’ throws, mostly noting how the veteran is not properly planting his foot to be able to drive the ball.
3rd-and-15. No pressure. Time to rifle this in there. Look at the follow thru. It's his right achilles that was torn. Can't even get his cleats into the turf to drive the ball.
— Hayden Winks (@HaydenWinks) September 9, 2024
Take a second to watch this. pic.twitter.com/r34hyOzFLv
every Kirk Cousins dropback end zone view
— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) September 9, 2024
what do you notice pic.twitter.com/RllUesBU7F
Head coach Raheem Morris had a chance to speak with the media on Monday afternoon where he would reassure everyone that Cousins is healthy despite what fans saw during the game:
“Obviously, you know, probably some rust from not playing for so long but that’s just with all of them. Grady [Jarrett] had a bunch of rust, we had a bunch of guys out there, Avery Williams, Kirk, and we want to get better but we’ve got to play better at the position and play better around him.”
Cousins was slotted in the pistol or shotgun formation for a vast majority of the game, 96% of the time to be exact. Throughout his career, Cousins has thrived in play-action and taking snaps under center and the offensive game plan completely shied away from that. Coach Morris gave his answer as to why that may have been the case:
“Well, everything is going to be situational to the game plan for who you’re playing against. When you go out and you put those guys in what we do and how we want to play and put those guys in a good position to get those guys blocked, those aliens that the Steelers have, you’ve got to try to figure those things out.”
This raises some eyebrows at Robinson and his play calling for the offense. Was he scheming with caution for Cousins’ health or was it simply just a bad day at the office for him and Cousins is healthier than many think? Or…could it be a mix of both?
Regardless of whether Cousins is healthy or not, there is a silver lining to all of this, because there is still an entire season left with 16 more games to go and plenty of opportunities to turn the team around. Week 1 was not something to write home about whatsoever. Progress has to be made and errors need to be corrected. If the team fails to do so in the coming weeks, this season could almost definitely turn upside down before our very eyes.
Atlanta will take the field next Monday in primetime against the Philadelphia Eagles at 8:15 p.m. ET in Philadelphia.
