Michael Cunningham: Falcons coach Raheem Morris is mismanaging the quarterback situation

Michael Cunningham, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Dec 9, 2024

Published in Football

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ATLANTA — Falcons coach Raheem Morris said Monday that Kirk Cousins is still the starting quarterback. I don’t believe Morris should bench Cousins in favor of rookie Michael Penix. Cousins has been bad for a month, but Penix is too green. Add this circumstance to the list of reasons why it was a bad idea for the Falcons to draft Penix No. 8 overall after signing Cousins for $100 million guaranteed.

The Falcons were never going to get maximum value out of both quarterbacks. Now Morris is struggling to manage the situation that he helped create. He’s got a veteran who’s been among the worst starters in the NFL for the past month. Morris has a backup who barely played during the exhibition season and didn’t play at all on Sunday at Minnesota after the Falcons were hopelessly behind.

Would Morris have any hesitation with playing Penix if he believes he’d give the Falcons the best chance to win?

“If that time ever came, I would have a lot of confidence in what Mike is able to do,” Morris said. “But Kirk is our quarterback. Kirk is the guy that is going to lead us. We’ve still got a big-time opportunity on Monday Night Football (at Las Vegas) with Kirk leading us and I’m fired up to for us to go out there and play better.”

If Cousins’ bad run continues, I wonder if Morris really would replace him with Penix. He made the strange decision not to play Penix when the Falcons trailed the Vikings 42-21 with less than four minutes left. Why not let Penix run the hurry-up offense with the starters? I’m not saying that would make-or-break Penix’s development, but it’s worth more than sending Cousins back in for garbage time.

Penix played in two other blowout losses, vs. Seattle in Week 7 and at Denver in Week 11. The difference now is that Cousins is struggling (eight interceptions with zero touchdowns over the past four games) and Falcons supporters are increasingly calling to see Penix. After Sunday’s game, Morris said he sent Cousins back in the game because he wanted him “to go finish his deal out here in Minnesota,” where Cousins played the past seven seasons.

Asked for clarification on Monday, Morris said: “Realistically, we’ve got a chance to score and we are right back in this thing with an onside kick to try to win that game in Minnesota where (Cousins) is from. I wanted Kirk to finish the game out for us.”

Well, that’s not very clarifying.

Maybe Morris really believed the Falcons had a realistic chance of winning the game. But I think Morris wanted to avoid turning up the volume on his QB controversy. And it’s a bad sign if Cousins’ Vikings connection really was part of Morris’ decision. That shouldn’t be a higher priority than game action for the player they consider to be their future franchise QB. Cousins’ feelings also shouldn’t be the determining factor if benching him would make the Falcons better.

Cousins wasn’t happy about the Falcons drafting Penix. In May, I asked Morris if that meant he would have to manage the situation.

“It’s my job to manage everything, (like) manage expectations from the fans and wanting us to do something sooner than we want to do it,” Morris said at the time. “We had a plan going into this thing. Kirk is our quarterback, and that will play out as it plays out. We’ve got a guy in the building that we hope can be our potential guy in the future.”

It’s played out in a way that’s already put Morris in a difficult spot. The Falcons took a risk by signing a 35-year-old QB months after he had surgery to repair a ruptured left Achilles. Cousins was so limited physically to start the season that the Falcons couldn’t run a normal NFL offense. Then Cousins got more mobile and played better, and the Falcons were winning.

But now Cousins is playing the worst football of his career. The Falcons (6-7) have fallen a game behind the Buccaneers in the NFC South with four to play. The Falcons are losing with Cousins playing poorly and have done next-to-nothing to develop Penix with snaps in live games (he only played 24 snaps in one exhibition game). If Cousins and the team can’t turn things around, then Morris eventually will have to start Penix and then deal with the fallout.

Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot took a lot of heat for acquiring both quarterbacks. I didn’t agree with their decision, but I respected their conviction to the unconventional approach. Also, I figured that managing the QB situation wouldn’t become a big issue because Cousins would be at least an average starter. The possibility of Penix taking his job wouldn’t come up.

But now Cousins has been one of the worst starters in the NFL for a month. Penix not only hasn’t played any meaningful snaps, he played no snaps at all on Sunday. As Morris said back in May, it’s his job to manage the situation. He’s struggling to do it well.

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