Kirk Cousins Suddenly Is A $180 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?

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.

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?

“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.

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.

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.