On Thursday afternoon, the Atlanta Falcons began their first official day of training camp, after reporting to the facility the day prior. Head coach Raheem Morris spoke with the media Thursday morning and brought along some very positive news for the team’s QB1 and star DT:
Kirk Cousins and Grady Jarrett are medically cleared for practice.
“We are out, ready to go, obviously we will do some sort of our own modifications,” Morris said. “But he’s [Cousins] ready to go, we’ll do some modifications obviously with Grady [Jarrett].”
This is very reassuring news for the team, to be able to have two of their key players out on the field as they head into the 2024 season.
Last season with the Minnesota Vikings, Kirk Cousins suffered a torn Achilles that would cause him to miss the back half of the season. In early March, Cousins departed Minnesota and inked a four-year deal with the Atlanta Falcons on the opening day of the NFL free agency period.
Throughout the entire offseason, Cousins has participated in OTAs and other offseason activities for Atlanta and now to be medically cleared is a huge step forward for not only himself but for the team to be able to know that their starting quarterback is almost certainly going to be able to start for them in Week 1.
When day one of training camp wrapped up, Cousins stood at the podium and took time to discuss his rehab process with media members. “Great to get back out here, obviously in my situation it’s great to be moving around in football cleats again,” Cousins said “Feeling stronger, being able to compare it to six weeks ago, I feel much more athletic and much less pain.”
Cousins noted that it was always a goal to try and “speed up the process”, but with it being his first time coming back from a major surgery, he can only speed up as much as his body lets him.
While it has been a long road to recovery, what are the final steps of this rehab process as we inch closer to Week 1? Well, Cousins acknowledged that the last part is simply “playing football” and being capable of making cuts and being in football cleats to be able to cross that finish line and be 100% healthy for the upcoming season.
Cousins said that he feels good and ready to go play now, so much so that he asked Raheem Morris to play in preseason games this August, Cousins said that Morris simply responded with “You’re not playing, that’s just not how we wanna do things.”
Although Cousins feels ready to step out onto the field for live game action, it may be best that he plays it safe and focuses more on the regular season opener. That being said, rookie Michael Penix Jr. and Taylor Heinicke are expected to get the majority of playing time in the preseason. Raheem Morris noted that the two quarterbacks will split second-team reps during training camp.
As the players and coaches push forward to the 2024 season and prepare for their home opener against former head coach Arthur Smith and the Pittsburgh Steelers, this is a tremendous way to start off training camp.
