What Raheem Morris said about the Falcons’ quarterback change

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. – Raheem Morris held on to hope as long as he could.

“Every single week” last month he hoped Kirk Cousins ​​would get back on track. He hoped the ball losses were a coincidence. He hoped that his starting quarterback’s slump would fix itself. That never happened. So on Tuesday night, he met with Cousins ​​at the Flowery Branch facility and told him the news: The team had decided to hand Michael Penix Jr. the reins of the offense.

It certainly wasn’t an easy conversation.

“Any time you resign, get demoted, it’s not met with great appreciation and all those things, but Kirk was a professional. He was a professional. He was a man. “He was a great person,” Morris said. “…He handled it with class. I can’t say enough good things about who the man is and what he’s like. Of course there is a certain disappointment when you lose your job.”

Cousins ​​and the Falcons have been under pressure for a month now, with questions swirling daily about Atlanta’s plan for the quarterback position, with Cousins’ production clearly down from his glory days in October. Morris and the Falcons’ staff gave Cousins ​​as much time as possible to right his own ship. But the closer you get to shore, the more likely you are to run aground, and the hawks can’t afford that.

“We searched, dug as much as we could to make things work, and tried to get things going,” Morris said. “But (Tuesday) night we made the decision to make the change. We wanted to play better at quarterback and we felt like we’d get a chance to play a little bit better and if we can go out and play better at quarterback, who knows what could happen.

As time went on – and Cousins’ turnover-to-touchdown ratio became more and more lopsided – the Falcons’ once-burning confidence in Cousins ​​waned.

“I had a lot of confidence that we would play better. I had great confidence that we would do better in this position. I had great confidence that he would get back to form,” Morris said. “And we just didn’t do it, for whatever reason. We need to figure these things out.”

Morris was asked the obvious follow-up question: Is there anything he could point to as an explanation for Cousins’ decline in performance?

He answered frankly and quickly: “No.”