NFL Open Thread: My American Cousins edition
By 
The best thing you can say about the Falcons’s bizarre sequence of QB decisions in the offseason is that the “draft Penix” part is looking better:
We’ve already gone chapter and verse on how Cousins’ lack of mobility has grievously limited his options as a thrower, and how offensive coordinator Zac Robinson was hamstrung by those issues. Not that Robinson was able to retrofit his concepts to this “statuesque” version of Cousins, but in today’s NFL, if your quarterback can’t functionally move within the pocket (never mind escaping the pocket and making second-reaction throws), you’re sunk as an offense.
The nadir of Cousins’ time with the Falcons came on Monday night against the Las Vegas Raiders. The Falcons won the game 15-9, which put them at 7-7 on the season, but Cousins completed 11 of 17 passes for 112 yards, one touchdown, one interception, a passer rating of 78.6, and very little in the way of explosive plays in the passing game. Not that one should blame the team for this — when you have a quarterback who had thrown no touchdowns and eight interceptions in his previous four games as Cousins had, you’re just looking to get the guy in any kind of rhythm.
Those limitations were obvious in a situational sense. Cousins didn’t attempt a single first-down pass in the first half, which is really unusual in the modern league. His first first-down passing attempt came with 14:52 left in the third quarter, and it was an interception to Raiders linebacker Robert Spillane in which Cousins threw late over the middle to tight end Charlie Woerner when he had receiver Drake London coming open on the back side. As the Falcons never threw on first down in the game after that, this may have been the last straw.
It took the team one day after that to make the call that had to be made: Cousins out, Penix in.
“After review, we have made the decision that Michael Penix will be the Atlanta Falcons’ starting quarterback moving forward,” head coach Raheem Morris said in a Tuesday evening statement. “This was a football decision, and we are fully focused on preparing the team for Sunday’s game against the New York Giants.”
Woof. Sounds like a man for Woody Johnson should Aaron Rodgers decide to go to work for the Surgeon General. There’s also some good analysis of Penix at the link.
Let’s hope today’s slate look more like yesterday’s pro games than yesterday’s semi-pro games.