Kirk Cousins didn’t forget how to play quarterback. He just didn’t do it well enough often enough to keep his job in Atlanta.
Don’t write off the veteran just yet.
There’s no sugarcoating the way Cousins played over the past five games. He struggled mightily, throwing just one touchdown pass and nine interceptions in that span.
But this was the same guy who had 117.2 passer rating and led the Falcons to a comeback win on the final drive in Week 2 in Philadelphia in just his second start coming back from surgery for a torn Achilles tendon.
Cousins threw for 509 yards and four touchdowns against the Buccaneers on Oct. 3. He had four TD passes and a 145.9 passer rating in another win over Tampa Bay on Oct. 27. He followed that up with three TD passes and a 144.8 rating in a victory against Dallas a week later on Nov. 3.
Then came a terrible stretch. That prompted Falcons coach Raheem Morris to make the bold decision to bench Cousins for rookie Michael Penix Jr. in the middle of a playoff chase.
The Falcons lost four straight games, including three in a row against teams with tough defenses — Broncos, Chargers, Vikings — before beating the Raiders. Cousins only threw 17 passes, completing 11 for 112 yards, one TD and one interception in a 15-9 win in Las Vegas.
That wasn’t good enough to keep him in the lineup.
Penix, the eighth overall pick in the NFL draft, gets a soft landing for his first career start. The Falcons (7-7) host the woeful New York Giants (2-12) on Sunday. Atlanta could win that game giving the ball to Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier 50 times.
Cousins will watch from the sideline as an expensive backup. The Falcons gave the four-time Pro Bowl QB a $180 million, four-year contract on the first day of free agency. Cousins got $100 million guaranteed with $27.5 million of that money still owed to him.
His contract, which includes a no-trade clause, complicates a pending divorce from Atlanta. Of course, Cousins is also just one play away from going back under center if Penix gets hurt.
If Penix stays healthy, this still isn’t the end for Cousins.
Just two weeks ago, Morris was heaping praising on him.
“That guy has carried us,” Morris said after Cousins threw four picks in a loss to the Chargers on Dec. 1. “That guy has got us to the point where we’re 6-6 and we’re first place in the division. Still got everything in front of us, despite what happened today. It’s up to us to bounce back and find a way to win football games, and there’s no better man than (No.) 18 to go do that for us.”
Cousins turns 37 before the start of the 2025 season. He should still have plenty of football left in his right arm. He could veto any trade and force Atlanta to release him. If the Falcons designate Cousins a post-June 1 release, they would incur a dead-cap hit of $40 million. The Broncos took on a $49.5 million hit this season by releasing Russell Wilson.
“It’s pro football. There’s a standard that I have for myself, that the team has for me,” Cousins said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t playing up to that standard consistently enough. It is what it is. You roll with it. Now, you still get ready, one play away kind of a thing, and support Mike and just try to help our team be able to find a way to win these last three to get in the playoffs. That’s what it’s all about. That’s my focus.”
Several teams will enter the offseason looking for a new starting quarterback, including the Giants, Titans and Raiders. The Jets and Browns, also could be in the mix.
Cousins isn’t at a point where he should accept a backup job. There are too many mediocre quarterbacks across the league.
The NFL hasn’t seen the last of Kirko Chainz.
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Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins warms up prior to an NFL football game against the Las Vegas Raiders, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins (18) throws against the Las Vegas Raiders during the second half of an NFL football game, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.
With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?
“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”
Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”
Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.
Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.
Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”
Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.
“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.
Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.
Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.
Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."
“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.
The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.
The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.
Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”
Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.
Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”
Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”
Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.
“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.
Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”
“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.
AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.
In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)
