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Marc Raimondi, ESPN Staff Writer
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Quarterback Kirk Cousins went to see the movie “Wicked” with his wife, Julie, and two sons, Cooper and Turner, during the Atlanta Falcons bye week. Cousins sang the soundtrack in his high school choir and watched the Broadway musical when he was in college. So, he couldn’t help himself last week.
“The thing I was doing in the theater was I was singing along, so I waited for my wife to nudge me to stop doing that,” Cousins said. “But when Elphaba goes into ‘The Wizard and I,’ it’s hard not to. ‘Defying Gravity,’ it’s hard not to. But I digress.”
“Wicked” was a two-hour-and-40-minute respite for Cousins, who is notoriously hard on himself when it comes to football. The Falcons are 6-5, losing their past two contests, the most recent one a 38-6 drubbing on the road against the Denver Broncos. Cousins didn’t throw a touchdown pass in either loss, the first time in his career as a full-time starting quarterback that he didn’t throw a TD in consecutive games.
“There is a little bit of making a bonfire outside [in] my backyard and sitting there looking at the fire and just ruminating on my third-down reads and my footwork and decision-making and those kinds of things,” Cousins said. “So, it’s the way it always will be.”
Cousins also went to his hometown in Michigan and attended a game at his alma mater, Michigan State. He returned to Georgia this week prepared with a list of things the Falcons were doing well — that they need to do more of — and what wasn’t going as well.
“Kirk is awesome, man,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said. “He’s probably one of the more fun people that I’ve been around coming off byes or mini-byes or … just going into anything big. He puts his thoughts together, he [puts them] down on the paper.
“I’m sure he consults with Julie, his wife, and then he’s able to come in and absolutely attack whether there are issues or things we do well, things he wants to keep doing, get a state of the union from me — whatever the case may be. He’s awesome in those ways because everybody wants to have that relationship with that quarterback. And Kirk won’t let you not have that relationship with him, if you know what I mean.”
Cousins said it’s one thing to talk about how things can get fixed and “another thing to prove it.” The Falcons have a key contest Sunday at home against the Los Angeles Chargers (1 p.m., ET, CBS), another team with a good defense. With six games left, Cousins said Atlanta needs to “earn the right to play a seventh.”
And the Falcons, who were banged up two weeks ago, are saying they are coming into the stretch run refreshed.
“I don’t know when the perfect time would’ve been for it — probably before we lost the two games — but you definitely go into it saying, ‘man, we needed the bye last week,'” Morris said. “We certainly needed it. There’s no doubt about it.”
The Falcons are 22nd in the league in red zone touchdown scoring percentage, which is an issue they want to address. Penalties in the red zone have been a killer.
One thing the Falcons plan on doing differently on offense is adding more play-action passes. Atlanta has run play-action on just 14.3% of Cousins’ dropbacks this season. Since his rookie season in 2012, Cousins has the most touchdowns (79) and the second-most passing yards (9,809) out of play-action in the league. Morris said the Falcons have “definitely neglected” the tactic so far this season.
“Not to steal our plans and things of that nature, but it’s definitely something that’s valid that we haven’t run much of our play-action,” Morris said. “It’s really something that Kirk does really well.”
On defense, it’s about trying to continue to find combinations that work with an anemic pass rush. The Falcons have a league-low 10 sacks, the least through 11 games out of any team since 2018. Morris said the team needs more from edge rusher Matthew Judon, who the Falcons acquired from the New England Patriots in August for a third-round draft pick. Judon had 15.5 sacks in 2022 and was considered one of the NFL’s premier pass rushers before missing most of last season with a torn bicep.
“I can’t sit here and tell you that we’ve gotten what we want out [of Judon],” Morris said. “That’d be an absolute lie and I won’t do that, but I can’t tell you that he’s got what he wants out of himself and I think the guy’s a self-motivated, self-driven guy that wants to go out there and be productive and do the right things for his team because I know he’ll put in the effort.”
Morris said the goal for Atlanta was to be playing meaningful games in November. That has been accomplished. The Falcons are still in first place, even though they haven’t looked like a division leader in their past two games.
“We struggled the past two games, but we’re not a bad team,” defensive lineman Grady Jarrett said. “We know that.”
Morris said he spent the bye week with family and had “basically the Olympics” with his kids, playing all different kinds of sports.
“Pick a ball, whatever ball you got, you play and you find ways to dominate your kids,” Morris said with a laugh. “I needed a win.”
Morris said he got a “big lesson” from his son Jalen. When he won in pickleball, he was happy. When he did not, “he was pouting.” Morris said he wasn’t going to let his son do that. He won’t let the Falcons, either.
“It is what it is, but we forget sometimes that this is the game, and we love it and it’s really enjoyable when it’s going your way,” Morris said, “and we also forget sometimes not to pout when it’s not.”
Source: www.espn.com