FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Raheem Morris told the Atlanta Falcons offensive players on Saturday night that his one goal was for them to be “clean and crisp” the next day.
“Sounds easy. It’s not,” quarterback Kirk Cousins said. “We were not, so we lost. I’m blaming myself. I’ve got to play better. I have to operate better. I was probably the center of it not being clean and crisp. That frustrated me deeply because I place such an importance on that.”
The inability to manage the mundane is what undid the Falcons in their 18-10 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday — not Cousins’ Achilles injury or the formations or the alignment of Cousins’ feet or even the offensive tendencies. At least Cousins and offensive coordinator Zac Robinson agree on that.
“I take full responsibility for what happened on Sunday with the operation things,” Robinson said. “We are certainly looking at ourselves as coaches first and foremost. Disappointed with what happened the other day, but we’re cleaning those things up.”
So much of Atlanta’s hope for this season was built around the pairing of the expensive free-agent quarterback and the young play caller who apprenticed under Sean McVay that their combined failure in Week 1 erased a lot of the expectations for the Falcons outside their building.
Inside the building, Atlanta’s coaches and players didn’t seem nearly so discouraged.
Most importantly, Cousins’ ankle is 100 percent fine, the quarterback and Robinson said. Atlanta’s decision to keep Cousins confined to a phone booth-sized portion of the pocket had nothing to do with his Achilles injury, Robinson said.
“Not concerned with Kirk’s mobility at all,” Robinson said. “He’s looked great out there, and he’s moving really good today.”
Under center reps for Kirk Cousins in practice today. pic.twitter.com/5XIMnDBfBy
— Maria Martin (@Ria_Martin) September 12, 2024
Cousins, who tore his Achilles tendon in Week 8 last season, looked spry throughout the portions of practices open to the media throughout the preseason, and he was moving seemingly without any limitations again Wednesday as the Falcons returned to the practice field.
“The Achilles feels good,” he said after Thursday’s practice. “I feel like I can move and push as I normally would. I feel like we kind of crossed that threshold a while back.”
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The fact Cousins took only two snaps from under center was not because of his health but because of Atlanta’s belief that the pistol formation it used on 22 of its plays provides almost all the benefits of both an under center and shotgun alignment, Robinson said. The Falcons have been planning to make the pistol a big part of their offense since April, Cousins said.
“We will be ever-evolving based on the game plan each week but certainly like the pistol,” Robinson said. “Last year with the Rams, we kind of realized, ‘Man, you have kind of everything at your disposal.’”
When Cousins realized the Falcons planned to operate out of the pistol so much this season, he changed his stance to a balanced look with both feet square under his shoulders rather than the stance he used in Minnesota with his left foot slightly behind his right foot. He used the same square stance in Washington in 2012 and 2013 when the Commanders employed the pistol formation because it makes it easier to hand the ball off to either side, he said.
“It’s been a constant evolution, and I felt like square stance in the pistol made the most sense,” he said.
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Cousins was 25th in the league in passing efficiency (minus-.18 EPA) and 26th in passer rating (59.0) in Week 1, according to TruMedia. Those numbers were his eighth-worst and sixth-worst, respectively, in the last five years of his career. But the quarterback didn’t blame Robinson or the changes the Falcons’ plan has thrust upon him.
“My thought has always been, ‘You call it, I’ve got to go ball it.’ I’ve had nine play callers,” Cousins said. “You learn to kind of say, ‘What do you want to do? Teach me it and let me go do it.’ That’s always been my approach.”
Quarterback grading and efficiency
The Mahomes/Carr/Darnold cluster is killing me pic.twitter.com/jvRIE97xor
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Morris said he does not expect his quarterback to change anything about his approach despite a disappointing Week 1.
“We did not have a good game. He did not have a good game,” Morris said. “We were very clear about that. There was no sugarcoating it. That’s what men do; he accepts it like we all do. There was no blame game, and I just know what he’s going to do. He’s going to bring urgency and do everything he can do to try to play better. I’ve got all the confidence in the world in him because of who he is.”
The Falcons threw the ball out of all 22 of their shotgun alignments and ran the ball on 81 percent of their 26 snaps out of the pistol formation, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
“Certainly, you don’t want any tells with what you’re doing so you want to make sure you have a good balance there,” Cousins said.
Robinson cautioned against overreacting to a one-game sample size of play distribution.
“Context is always going to matter in those cases,” he said. “We felt good about the plan going in. We’ll continue to mix those things up. The game plan was what it was, and we’ll just keep things moving.”
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Atlanta also didn’t run a single play-action pass, which is not a philosophical issue but a situational one, Robinson said.
“The flow of the game and how things went, there were some that were called that, based on the defensive look, didn’t get run,” he said. “Those will continue to get mixed in. The overall flow of the game took us out of a few of those things.”
The Falcons had the worst pass-blocking rate in the league in Week 1 (35.7 percent pressure allowed), according to TruMedia. They were second in the league last season (13.4 percent).
“Those guys think they can play better,” Robinson said. “We’re expecting those guys to be one of the top units in the league. There are some things across the board that we’re all cleaning up. The level of standard everybody has for that group is going to be really high.”
Steelers edge rusher T.J. Watt had a sack, three quarterback hits, two tackles for loss and recovered a fumble against the Falcons.
“We felt like there was a good plan going in to get some presence on his side,” Robinson said. “We had a good chip plan going in for him. Unfortunately, we just didn’t execute that.”
The combination of Watt’s effectiveness and Atlanta’s inability to achieve the same made for a long Sunday night for Cousins, the quarterback said.
“I’m sitting there Sunday night pretty disappointed, but I’ve got games from 2013 that still bother me, you know?” he said. “I’ve got scars, more than Achilles tendon scars.”
(Photo: Brett Davis / USA Today)
