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Kirk Cousins Suddenly Is A $180 Million Bargain For The Atlanta Falcons

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Kirk Cousins Suddenly Is A 0 Million Bargain For The Atlanta Falcons


So far, Kirk Cousins is worth every penny, nickel, dime and quarter inside of his four-year contract with the Atlanta Falcons for $180 million.

Hear that sound?

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That’s Falcons officials slapping hi-fives between themselves and their accountants after they ignored Cousins’ birth certificate (36 to begin the season) and Achilles surgery (which came after he missed most of last season with the Minnesota Vikings) to give the quarterback all of that loot in March.

Consider this:

  • After six consecutive losing seasons, the Falcons are 3-2 overall and leading the NFC South at 2-0. Yeah, they’ve been “resilient,” as Falcons head coach Raheem Morris likes to say, and Younghoe Koe has remained among the NFL’s all-time clutch kickers. That said, the primary reason for this early spurt of goodness for the Falcons is Cousins has been Captain Kirk indeed more often than not during the fourth quarter.
  • You get the feeling Cousins still is shredding the secondary of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He did so early, often and throughout an improbable (FYI: that’s a common word these days for the Falcons) 36-30 victory in overtime Thursday night in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
  • In the end, Cousins completed 42 of 58 passes for 509 yards and four touchdowns. As the football gods would have it, he broke the franchise record for passing yards in a game held by the same Matt Ryan who was inducted Thursday night into the Falcons Ring of Honor at halftime.
  • Achilles issue? What Achilles issue?

As for the latter, after the Falcons used the NFL’s head-to-head tiebreaker to slip just ahead of the 3-2 Bucs in the division, I told Cousins that he looked totally healthy and more like 26 than 36.

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Does that visual match reality?

“That’s a good question,” said Cousins, in his 13th NFL season after he played the previous six with the Vikings before his opening six with Washington.

“I think I feel somewhere in between there. I feel good. I think being a pocket passer, and I’ve talked to some retired quarterbacks and asked them, do I need to be a scrambler to maintain production in this league, because there are so many talented running quarterbacks? The feedback I got was, no. You’re always going to have to do it from the pocket. Be accurate. That’s the key.

“So that’s kind of the way I’ve always played. I think it sets me up well as I get older to be able to still do it even if my body isn’t at its best, because standing back there from the pocket, you know, you don’t have to be quite the same athlete. No, I feel good.”

I had one more question for Cousins: Do you believe you are completely healed from that Achilles surgery?

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“I do, yeah. Yeah, I do,” Cousins said. “And then there’s always the bumps and bruises that come from playing. My thumb hurts right now. My left knee. You’re always going to have stuff. Just play through it.”

No problem there.

Ask the Bucs, who haven’t stopped rubbing their eyes — along with those watching Thursday night’s nationally televised broadcast — as Cousins did it again.

Three games after Cousins took the Falcons from defeat to victory against the Eagles in Philadelphia during the final minutes, and four days after he did the same at home against the New Orleans Saints, there was his latest miracle.

Somehow, after the Bucs resembled the Eagles and the Saints by having a game down the stretch virtually signed, sealed and delivered against the Falcons, Cousins turned that into a mirage. He took the Falcons 80 yards with the greatest of ease for Younghoe Koo’s 52-yard field goal with no time left in regulation play.

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That pushed the game into overtime at 30-30.

Then, moments after woozy No. 1 wide receiver Drake London left the field for the Falcons during the opening drive of extra minutes, Cousins rifled another of his many perfect throws for the night through Tampa Bay defenders. This time, his pass was to fifth-string wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge who sprinted for a game-winning catch and run of 45 yards.

It was Hodge highlighting this Falcons’ thriller, and it was Koo, and it was “resiliency,” but it was mostly Cousins.

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All you need to know is:

  • Cousins just set an NFL record by throwing for over 450 yards for a third different team (Washington, Minnesota and Atlanta).
  • Cousins managed his 30th career game-winning drive in the fourth quarter or overtime to rank fifth among active quarterbacks.
  • Cousins doesn’t have a worry in the world these days about his Achilles or his age, thank you.



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Atlanta, GA

Cancellations, delays continue at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

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Cancellations, delays continue at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport


ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The trouble for travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport continued Sunday as rain persisted in metro Atlanta.

As of 5 p.m. Sunday, 487 flights have been delayed and 124 have been canceled.

TSA wait times have also ballooned; passengers going through the main checkpoint should expect to wait upwards of an hour, and those going through the north checkpoint should expect to wait more than 30 minutes.

The airport said, “The delays are the result of residual impacts from two ground stops issued on Friday, which created a temporary backlog in passenger volumes, combined with current TSA staffing constraints.”

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The delays added to a disastrous weekend for Hartsfield-Jackson. Travelers on Saturday described hourslong tarmac waits, missed connections and overnight strandings after storms triggered mass cancellations and delays.

The Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines received the bulk of travelers’ frustration. The airline released a statement to Atlanta News First addressing the tarmac delays.

“We apologize to our customers, as we know that a delay on the tarmac waiting for an arrival gate is frustrating. Delta people worked through severe weather challenges in ATL that drove gating constraints overnight,” the company said. “The safety of our customers and crew is our highest priority.”



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Atlanta, GA

Youth, served: Real Salt Lake pulls past Atlanta United to keep fast start

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Youth, served: Real Salt Lake pulls past Atlanta United to keep fast start


SANDY — Three games into the 2026 campaign and Real Salt Lake has a formula for success.

Spoiler alert: the kids are (still) all right.

Aiden Hezarkhani scored a goal for the second-straight week, rookie Sergi Solans added his first professional, and Real Salt Lake served its youth again en route to a 3-2 win over Atlanta United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Fellow teenager Zavier Gozo also scored for Real Salt Lake, the Utah native’s first of the season after his breakout four-goal, three-assist campaign last year to help his home side improve to 2-1-0.

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Aleksei Miranchuk had a brace for Atlanta, which fell to 0-3 while being outscored 7-2 a year after struggling to a 5-16-13 campaign.

“It was a shootout,” RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni said. “This was one of those games that was super exciting. It’s a real credit to the group on both sides of the ball. I thought we were really deliberate … and defensively, we were great against a top attacking group.

“We knew it was going to be difficult. But the guys weathered the storm … and we challenged the group to dig deep, to defend our box, and manage the game the right way.”

Salt Lake, meanwhile, has won two of its first three matches — even with a shorthanded roster. The club lost Diego Luna (knee) and Victor Olatunji (eye) to injuries during the same training session before the season opener in Vancouver, and former U.S. international fullback DeAndre Yedlin picked up a hamstring injury last week.

But if adversity spawns opportunity, Real Salt Lake’s rising generation is taking advantage of either — or both. Give credit, too, to the veteran players for bringing along the youth that also include 17-year-old Luca Moisa — and not skip a beat.

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“It’s like a brotherhood,” Mastroeni said. “There’s no guy that’s bigger than the team.”

Gozo and Morgan Guilavogui nearly connected for a goal just 49 seconds into the match, but the newly signed Designated Player making his first start saw his shot tipped over the cross bar.

Instead, Guilavogui gave the visitors the early lead midway through the first half, slipping a brilliant through ball behind the defense to Solans for the clinical finish in the 23rd minute.

Solans was selected with the 30th overall pick of the 2025 MLS SuperDraft by Salt Lake, who traded $50,000 in general allocation money to the LA Galaxy in select the Spanish native.

But instead of signing forthright with the club, Solans elected to return to collect for one more year and the 22-year-old alumnus of Spain’s Girona FC academy returned to UCLA and scored a team-high 16 goals with six assists in 19 matches en route to All-American second-team honors and a program record-breaking third hat trick in the Big Ten Tournament final.

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“Sergi doesn’t necessarily have top-end speed,” Mastroeni said, “but he has top-end timing. When you threaten the back line, you don’t have to have the fastest speed. But you do have to have the right timing.

“You’ve got to make plays — and that’s what making plays looks like.”

Hezarkhani doubled the lead in the 27th minute, gaining possession of the ball in the final third with his chest off an angled touch from Solans before sliding a right-footed shot from the center of the box that put Salt Lake up 2-0.

It’s the second goal in as many matches for Hezarkhani, the 18-year-old academy alumnus who had six goals with four assists in 21 matches (19 starts) for Salt Lake’s third-division affiliate Real Monarchs a year ago.

Miranchuk pulled one back for the home side in the 38th minute, scoring Atlanta’s first goal of 2026 with one touch from Elias Baez from the center of the box to cut the deficit to 2-1.

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But Gozo finished a counter initiated by Philip Quinton and Justen Glad with his left less than two minutes later to push Salt Lake back in front 3-1 at halftime.

After a series of second-half introductions including the halftime debut of Utah native and former Corner Canyon High standout Griffin Dillon for RSL, Miranchuk added another for Atlanta in the 74th minute to cut the deficit to 3-2.

But Rafael Cabral made two saves on 16 shots faced to help the visitors hold on for their second straight win.

Real Salt Lake returns home next Saturday, March 14 to host Austin FC (7:30 p.m. MDT, Apple TV) before a road trip to San Diego FC.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Atlanta, GA

On the set of "Scream 7"

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On the set of "Scream 7"


Ghostface is back…and this time, the call’s coming from Atlanta! The seventh installment of the blockbuster horror franchise “Scream” was filmed in Metro Atlanta, including at Midtown’s SCAD Film Studios. We’re checking out one of the film’s notable sets, which is now serving as a classroom for students. We’re also catching up with screen legend Kurt Russell, his real-life won Wyatt, Emmy Award winner Anna Sawai, and the rest of the cast of the Apple TV hit “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” which is back for a second season. Finally, we’re getting a first taste of Atlanta’s newest culinary hotspot, 17th & State Restaurant + Bar! Bon Appetit!



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