After spending the last six years of his career in Minnesota with the Vikings, Kirk Cousins is embarking on a new journey as he continues his career in the NFL. The 36-year-old signed a 4-year deal this spring with the Atlanta Falcons, who are hoping a quarterback upgrade can vault them into contention in the NFC.
They’re putting their faith in Cousins, who will take his first snaps of live game action since tearing his achilles midway through the 2023 campaign. While Cousins didn’t make any preseason appearances, he’s confident that he’s gotten the needed reps as a full participant throughout training camp, along with some vital work in during minicamp action in the spring, even as he was still rehabbing to get back to full strength. Falcons fans are hopeful that Cousins can bring out the best in their talented young skill position players, as they selected a receiver (Drake London), tight end (Kyle Pitts), and running back (Bijan Robinson) in the top-10 three years in a row. The task for Cousins is to bring out the best in those young players who have seen a revolving door of quarterbacks over recent years, and he’s excited for what they can do for him as well.
Ahead of the start of the 2024 season in Atlanta, we got to talk with Cousins on behalf of Frito-Lay variety packs and a partnership with GENYOUth, donating meals to fight student hunger and food insecurity. We spoke about his move, the off-field component we often forget of changing franchises, why Atlanta was a place he thought he could win, building chemistry with his young teammates, playing for Raheem Morris, and more.
To start, why was this partnership with Frito-Lay and GENYOUth something you wanted to be a part of and be able to do something for your new home community in Atlanta?
Yeah, on one hand, obviously, the product is pretty iconic. You know, I grew up hoping and praying that my mom was gonna go to the grocery store and buy a Frito-Lay variety pack to put in my school lunches. And now it’s full circle, because I’ve got boys now going into first grade and kindergarten, and now we’re doing the same. And I just remember the fun of which flavor you were going to pick for the day and which pack you were going to get with which options. So just an iconic product that takes me back, and also now I’m using with my boys.
But in addition, just a charitable component with GENYOUth and providing meals to thousands of kids in Atlanta with the donation that Frito-Lay’s going to make. So really, those two components make it a natural fit. And obviously now it’s the back to school season, also the back to football time. So we’re kind of just ramping up now for the start of school, the start of football, and getting our family ready to go here in Atlanta. And this was a great way to just continue to partner ourselves with the community.
You mentioned moving down to Atlanta, and, you know, we often think about the football component, and we’ll get to that, but the life component and talking through this with your wife, with your family, when you have a free agency decision. What are those conversations like about all the non-football things that go into changing franchises?
Yeah, it has been a lot of change. There’s certainly on the field change that’s a lot, but off the field, you forget just how many logistics there are to selling a house, packing up a house, moving across the country, unpacking, finding a house, and then making it yours. And we’re still sort of in that process, and my wife has carried much of that load for me. But it’s no small task, and that’s what our last six months have been.
I remember the day we agreed to sign, our van was packed, and we were road tripping down to Georgia, and it was kind of okay, here we go, and it was quickly kind of drinking through a fire hose from there. So when I watch pro sports, I always see a player change teams, and I am guilty of thinking of him as just doing the exact same thing, but in a different jersey. And it’s so much more complex than that, and we’ve had to live that the last several months.
And then from a football perspective, when you were looking at teams, when you’re looking at what was out there, what made the Falcons an appealing destination for you?
I think ultimately, you kind of always think about, do we have the ability to win football games if I’m there? And you never truly know. But you look at coaches, you look at the talent on the roster, and you start to kind of paint a picture and make an educated guess. And I just looked at the Atlanta situation and felt like, you know, I would like to think I’d have a chance there to be successful and have people around me who are successful. And so that was really what informed the decision, for the most part, and that kind of drives everything.
For you getting back on the field from the achilles, what was the process and what were the checkpoints for yourself to feel like, “Okay, like we’re getting back to normal”? Or when you felt like, “Okay, I’m back to where I want to be on the field”?
Yeah, I was grateful that this spring, I was able to get a lot of reps being a new player to the team. I was wanting to be a part of as much of practice as I could, but I knew that coming off the injury that might be difficult, but we were able to still do it. Even though I was kind of midway through my recovery, I was able to really get every practice rep and that was a big help mentally to kind of get going with the playbook. And then over the summer break, I was able to make some progress and then I’ve been able to be at every training camp practice, full speed, full go. So I’ve been really pleased with the fact that I was able to be a part of so much from the start, and I think that really helped lay a good groundwork, because we did have a lot to catch up on.
Yeah, you’re coming, obviously, into a new system, but it’s also Zac Robinson’s first year here in Atlanta. Do you think that that can help you in a way? Because y’all are installing the system, and they’re installing it with you as the quarterback. It’s not like you’re coming in, and there’s guys who expect it done a certain way. You can kind of tailor it to how you see it and how you feel it.
I think there’s definitely that possibility. I think time will tell, we can kind of look back, based on how the year goes, to say, “Oh, this was a positive, or this wasn’t.” But I do think that you’re perceptive to say that, you know, there’s value in building something together, rather than just showing up and being told this is what we do. That too can have its benefits. But I do think that if we can build something that we both are proud of here, it will be fun to have kind of been able to create it from the ground up together and along with the rest of the guys, the O-line coach and guys who’ve already been here.
I do really like Zac as a football mind. I think he is very sharp. And so much of coaching, a big part of it in this league is, you know, being innovative and having a good football mind and pushing the next level to keep defenses guessing. And I think Zac naturally does a good job of that, and I think that can really help us.
You come in and there’s a bunch of young, talented guys that they’ve drafted recently at the skill positions, but those are guys that have gone through a lot of quarterback changes. Those are guys that have seen a lot of change. What is important for you to be able to build chemistry and build trust with them, so that they can have that confidence to play at their full capabilities that we might not have fully seen yet?
Well, I just want to help them develop their own careers and be successful and contribute the way they want to contribute to help us win. I want to participate in helping them, but I also know that they’re going to help me, and it’s going to go both ways, and that’s the beauty of football is the true team game aspect. We’re all dependent on each other, and I’m really excited about playing with them. It’s been a joy to work with these young guys and how hungry they are and their attention to detail and the way they listen. So I’ve really enjoyed building that chemistry, but we haven’t played a lot of [live] games yet. You know, we haven’t even played a full game yet – we didn’t play in the preseason, either. So there’s a little bit of chemistry building that is naturally going to have to happen during the season, too. And the longer we play together, the more we’re going to be able to get on the same page. But I do like our group and it is, as you said, all about kind of building chemistry as we go.
With regards especially to Bijan in the backfield, you’ve played with dynamic running backs in the past, and what does that do for a passing game? We think so much of the guys on the outside. What does it do for a passing game when you have a guy who gives you that added dynamic coming out of the backfield, and not just kind of behind the line of scrimmage, but he can get out in the field and run more of the route tree?
Well, I think it takes a lot of pressure off the passing offense to be absolutely perfect. If, when you check it down to a running back underneath, he can get you to first down, or he can create an explosive play, make the first guy miss. And I think that’s what Bijan — and really Tyler Allgeier, as well, are capable of doing. And so I feel a strong passing game tends to involve the running back, and I’d like to think that ours will be able to do that. And in doing so, you know, I think it’ll help make our whole offense better, because it’ll keep defenses honest, having to cover all five eligibles. So that’ll be an important part for me as kind of a distributor, to make sure that I’m going where my reads take me, and that if it means getting it to the back and that it goes to the back.
You’re now playing for Raheem Morris, and he’s a guy that – it seems everybody talks about how players seem to really enjoy his energy and his spirit and all that. What have you seen from him in the way that he leads, in the way that he engages with the guys, that you think can make him a successful head coach?
Yeah, I was able to be on the same team with Raheem about 10 years ago. We worked together for three years in Washington. He was a position coach at that time, and now as a head coach, I mean, he hasn’t changed a bit – in a good way. He’s the same cheerful person as he was back then, and he hasn’t allowed the responsibility or pressure of being a head coach change who he is or how he goes about his business. And to your point, I think that players enjoy going to work knowing that their coach enjoys going to work, and you really feel that joy from him at practice, in meetings, passing him in the hallway. And so I think it creates for a good, healthy environment. And I tell guys often, hey, we need to be on our details. We need to play well, we need to win, because this is an environment you want to play in, and the best way to ensure that you’re able to be in it, is to win.
