Kirk Cousins’s debut as the Falcons quarterback was not a rousing success.
Cousins was 16-of-26 for 155 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions while being sacked twice. He fumbled on two other hits by T.J. Watt that would have been sacks were it not for penalties by the Steelers and Cousins’s inability to escape pressure raised questions about his recovery from last season’s torn Achilles.
The Falcons’ play calls also played into those questions. The Falcons ran one play with Cousins under center, 26 in pistol, and 22 in shotgun. According to ESPN Stats & Info, they never had a designed run out of shotgun and ran on 81 percent of their pistol snaps.
On Monday, Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said Cousins had “some rust” as a result of his long layoff but said the usage had nothing to do with concerns that Cousins’s physical condition.
“I feel like Kirk is healthy,” Morris said, via Marc Raimondi of ESPN.com. “He’s been healthy since he’s been here. . . . With Kirk being here, we’ve been doing the same thing since he’s been here, and that’s how we’ve planned on playing and we’ve played that way throughout. We’ve played that way for a minute, and we’ve done a bunch of different things in our case and everything we’re going to do is figuring out how to win this football game. And that was the plan to go out there and win the football game.”
The Steelers defense is also part of the story, but continued struggles for the Falcons offense will make Cousins’s fitness a bigger issue for a team that has first-round pick Michael Penix cooling his heels on the bench.