Inside The Falcons Obsession
May 9th, 2024
“Mike, here’s another Hall of Famer that deserves a slap in the face.”
The national media allegiance to thinking the Falcons are the clear favorites in the NFC South has many layers.
One was magnified last night.
That’s when Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian was lecturing to the nation on SiriusXM NFL Radio.
“If Kirk Cousins had been the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons [last year] and stayed healthy, of course, they run away with the division,” Polian said without stopping to apologize for emptying his bowels on Bucs fans.
Polian went on to explain the Falcons had a strong roster, along with defensive execution and a decent offensive game plan to win. Greatly subpar quarterback play was to blame primarily for their 7-10 record, per Polian.
“They’re really a good team and adding Cousins to that clearly makes them the favorite,” he said.
Joe has run out of blunt objects to hurl the walls of JoeBucsFan.com world headquarters. C’mon!
The Falcons haven’t had a winning record since 2017. That’s a long run of organizational suck. Joe has no reason to believe Cousins and new head coach Raheem Morris are slam dunks to win anything.
Atlanta scored 17 points or less in eight of their 17 games last season. So Joe gets why so many people think dumping dismal Desmond Ridder for Cousins feels like a magic elixir. But the NFL rarely works that way.
May 9th, 2024 at 12:03 pm
Atlanta was the best team in nfc south outside of the qb position. Did you guys see any of their games?
May 9th, 2024 at 12:08 pm
If they ONLY needed better QB play, why did they change coaches?
May 9th, 2024 at 12:14 pm
We have experienced the difference one particular veteran QB made on the Bucs in 2020. The fact it was replicated by Stafford on the Rams the next year has the rest of the NFL and it’s talking heads chasing the same magic and making the same predictions because of that recent history. It’s the same reason the Jets were so highly touted in the offseason last year.
It’s a copy cat league after all!
May 9th, 2024 at 12:15 pm
Everyone has a great team in May …
May 9th, 2024 at 12:17 pm
They had a bad QB, bad HC, the only defense in the league Bowles thought we had a trench advantage on. No WRs. Where was the great roster?
Is it the cool draft names at TE and RB? Positions that don’t even matter.
And this year’s big addition was adding more drama than talent to the QB room. 7-10 again, and that’s only if the rest of the division remains bad.
May 9th, 2024 at 12:18 pm
Seems fair to me. Atlanta beat us at RayJay last year and a last minute touchdown was needed to beat them in ATL. The second game was for first place in the nfc south in mid-December.
May 9th, 2024 at 12:19 pm
Won’t know until the play the games
May 9th, 2024 at 12:20 pm
Joe…are you going to keep complaining about Cousins, Atlanta and the media daily?
Not complaining just wondering…cause it is daily.
May 9th, 2024 at 12:25 pm
Atlanta had flaws on both sides of the ball. An improvement at QB will help, but it doesn’t make them a top-tier team.
Statistically, they had more yards on offense and gave up less yards on defense than the Bucs. However, they turned the ball over more and scored less points on offense while their defense was poor at taking the ball away and preventing points.
May 9th, 2024 at 12:31 pm
The Bucs were better than the Falcons in every team defensive stat. I don’t know what their off season looked like, but it seems this is two years in a row where there’s unwarranted Falcons love.
May 9th, 2024 at 12:42 pm
Baker has more playoff victories than Cousins and Carr combined, and they have something like 25 years of NFL experience between them
May 9th, 2024 at 12:51 pm
@Beej
Baker has 1 more playoff victory that Tim Tebow despite playing twice as long as Tebow. What’s your point?
May 9th, 2024 at 12:51 pm
“You are what your record says you are.” – Bill Parcells
This take of “the Falcons were a better team last year outside of the QB” is ridiculously dumb. We could just literally say the same thing about a LG or an OLB. An upgrade at either of those positions last season could have easily won us 2-3 more games. So this fantasy world “would have should have” arguments are simply meaningless pontificating.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:03 pm
Yep!
It work with us and Brady. Now the media is anointing Atlanta as the next 2020 Bucs.
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 9th, 2024 at 1:05 pm
I think the main thing I take from all the pundits is NOONE believes Baker can replicate his “decent” season from last year. If they did we would be the favorites. It’s literally Baker vs Cousins. And on a smaller scale Bowles vs Morris. Morris has learned a thing or two I’m sure from McVay and he is not the baby faced 34ish year old green head coach as we knew him. And well Bowles is Bowles. We have a harder schedule than Atl so it’s NOT that far fetched thinking about it objectively that they may have a small chance. Games are not played on paper and with preseason predictions. Time will tell I guess.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:07 pm
“,Polian said without stopping to apologize for emptying his bowels on Bucs fans.”
Now that’s freakin’ funny, sir! Good one.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:10 pm
Vikings vs Bucs 2023….. 20-17, that is not what I call lighting it up for the Vikings.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:15 pm
So is it JUANJames now? Do you really think we don’t know who you are? This is about the Falcons and JJames turns it in to Baker and Joe. How natural for 4 years.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:16 pm
@Baking With Evans – eh Kirk’s career doesn’t really compare to Brady so it’s more like the Falcons are trying to be the 2021 Rams where Stafford was good but the team around him was bad in Detroit.
The Rams did the same thing the Bucs did 2020 Bucs by intentionally acquiring a vet QB and oust their younger starter. The way I see it worked in Tampa, and LA.
Unless you’ve got Mahomes hiring a vet Qb seems to be the path to success.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:18 pm
With Bucs having one winning season between 2011 and 2020 Joe certainly knows the meaning of organizational suck.
Only thing that I have seen thus far that is promising over 2023 is Diaby is in Top 10 of 2023 Rookies to have a Break Out year. Unfortunately Bijan Robinson of the Falcons is predicted at 2nd most likely and that is a wash.
Two old timers returning from Achilles and two QB’s starting their second year
have better odds than Bucs QB of winning MVP @ Sports Books across the board. That’s based on their own research and not what the talking heads think. Bucs will need a few of the other 51 on the roster to make the difference because even though the Bucs have a decent QB he won’t be the one making it.
Not 100% but I believe I even saw one of the Joe’s posts this week warming up to the idea of possibly or at least being a Wild Card. That will come down to
the 6 games within each Division of which Tampa faces the least amount of competition in theirs.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:25 pm
Cousins…Mr. “What have you done for me”?
NFC South Defenses gonna tee – off on him
May 9th, 2024 at 1:27 pm
Raheem Morris Career Record as Coach: 21-38. Enough said!
May 9th, 2024 at 1:32 pm
Guess we’ll see.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:50 pm
Honestly, I love this underestimating us. Rank the Bucs in the low 20s in the power rankings to start the season. Predict them as the third best team in our division. I’ll take all of this “chip on our shoulder” motivation all day long. I loved last season how everyone thought we would suck aand the Bucs ended up making it to the second round of the playoffs. Let’s do it again this year!
May 9th, 2024 at 2:14 pm
Looking at the 23′ Falcons and their Wins…
1 vs the Panthers who sucked
1 vs Greenbay early on when Greenbay sucked
1 vs Houston when they were sucking early on / figuring out an identity
1 vs the Bucs (embarrassing loss for us – during our stretch of sucking)
1 vs the Saints who sucked
1 vs the Jets who sucked
1 vs the Colts who sucked
We at least had multiple big wins in big moments. @Minnesota. @Greenbay. The domination of the Jaguars at home. The playoff win vs the Eagles.
We should have beaten Houston and been a 10 win team… what a freak show game.
They had no good wins vs good teams IMO. At least for who those teams were at that point in the season. They had some bad losses to horrible teams too.
May 9th, 2024 at 2:15 pm
I was worried about the Falcons last year but when they hired RahRah and drafted Penix to muck up the Cousins signing I was pretty relieved.
What if they had hired Belichick or Harbaugh then drafted an OL, or Odunze or a pass rusher or even cornerback?
So dumb!
May 9th, 2024 at 2:16 pm
I still can’t believe what they paid an aging QB coming off a blown out Achilles…
Doesn’t seem prudent.
Will be interesting to see what becomes of Kirk and Kaaron this season.
May 9th, 2024 at 2:33 pm
Lord Cornelius Says:
We at least had multiple big wins in big moments. @Minnesota. @Greenbay. The domination of the Jaguars at home. The playoff win vs the Eagles.
———-
If we’re trying to be fair here…
Minnesota was clearly not as good as expected.
Green Bay was in the middle of a historically bad strech of defense – they literally made Tony Divitto, Baker Mayfield and Bryce Young all look like future HOFers.
The domination of the Jags… uh, they were 1-5 down the stretch, with the only victory vs the Panthers.
…and the Eagles were 1-6 down the stretch, with their only victory vs a pitiful Giants team (which, per above, somehow beat GB during their stretch).
I’m a lifelong Bucs fan, but I try to stay realistic, cause nothing sucks worse than thinking you got a good team, only to wake up and find out what you really got was a stocking full of turds. But I don’t think the Bucs wins are any more or less impressive than the Falcons – who clearly had and a terrible, God awful QB. People who don’t think they’ll be dramatically improved – the only thing I can imagine is that they think Cousins is going to get hurt – and even then, they drafted a guy who is worlds better than Ritter.
This year, the schedule is much tougher, and everyone in the NFC South notably improved, with the possible exception of the Bucs who dumped 3 starters on defense, while only adding 1 – and who have a huge hole at ILB, edge and no corner or safety depth and will have to count on rookies for production, which is a giant gamble.
With all that said, the Bucs certainly overachieved last season, and did much better than I expected, so hopefully they can pull it off again. We shall see.
May 9th, 2024 at 2:40 pm
Jmarkbuc Says:
May 9th, 2024 at 2:16 pm
I still can’t believe what they paid an aging QB coming off a blown out Achilles…
Doesn’t seem prudent.
———-
Achilles generally affect your speed / agility, which really isn’t part of Cousins skillset. Also QBs play a lot longer these days – I don’t see any reason Cousins won’t play until he’s 40 since you can continue to start until you’re arm goes.
That’s also why drafting a QB made no sense, unless the medicals on Cousins is worse than they’ve let on – which in turn still makes no sense, since why did you sign him if that’s the case.
In any case, even if Cousins isn’t healthy right away, or takes a few games to get back up to speed, he’s an incredible upgrade over Ritter, who was literally the worst starting QB in football. Even if Cousins isn’t 100%, I’d still assume he’ll be top 15 – and if he is healthy, probably top 12.
The Falcons have a ton of talent at WR, TE and RB, and getting that last piece at QB … I think that’s going to be a very very good offense, even if it takes a few games to get on the same page.
May 9th, 2024 at 2:59 pm
Footwork is very important for every quarterback for accuracy and power especially an aging one, it’s not just in the arm munch.
May 9th, 2024 at 3:17 pm
ATL’s schedule for next season is part of the reason for being picked #1 in the NFC South… It is ranked as dead last, I think. As in THE ‘easiest’ schedule in the entire League. Has anyone else seen it!? It is amazingly, WEAK. You could not have dreamed of having a weaker schedule or to have been in a worse Division. If Cousins stays healthy, along with the rest of the team (since they don’t appear to be very deep), & plays to previous form, then they can easily win 11-12 games… No problem.
May 9th, 2024 at 3:25 pm
I hope the Bucs gettem Week-1 at home. I’ve heard there’s a real good chance that Penix will have to start the first few games… I’ll like my chances Week-1 at home against a rookie QB in his first NFL start. Then, I’ll take ‘em again Week-18, when Cousins is banged up and in pain, & with the rest of their roster being depleted, or by then, maybe Penix, again.
May 9th, 2024 at 4:18 pm
I don’t think they took Penix because Cousins won’t be cleared by week 1. Getting Atlanta game 1 vs Penix is a pipe dream. It’s more likely they fear they will lose their 1st round pick next year for tampering than that. They are HOPING, they won’t pick that high again for years, so the Penix pick makes sense to me. Not saying it is what I would have done, but still not a HUGE question mark for me.
Atlanta has a good team, but desperately needed D Line help so that was huge for us. We got way better in the trenches and they didn’t.
I still LOVE the Bucs chances to win the Division again.
May 9th, 2024 at 4:52 pm
I mean they couldn’t have been that bad. They beat us remember ?
May 9th, 2024 at 5:25 pm
They drafted Penix because the falcons don’t have a first round pick next year because of the tampering.
May 9th, 2024 at 5:30 pm
Disagree about the “clearly” part, but everything else he said is correct, though I think he missed a point– it wasn’t just quarterback play, it was also the offensive playcalling in general.
We barely squeeked by them last year, so it’s not hard to think a better QB and better OC may have put them over the hump.
May 9th, 2024 at 5:34 pm
Arthur Smith makes Todd seem like Bill Walsh.
May 9th, 2024 at 6:05 pm
And Todd seems to have Cousins’ number. The one QB that seems to buy the confusion and be co fused by it
May 9th, 2024 at 6:17 pm
Like Jason said, receipts… this talk of the Falcons hopefully emboldens the Bucs entire team to go out and Win the whole show next season, not predicting that will happen. Only saying there mindset should be Super Bowl and anything less is not acceptable. Mindset!
May 9th, 2024 at 7:53 pm
Waste of time typing this, however; whomever wants to anoint the Falcons at this point is stepping up and showing ignorance OR trying to catch attention.
The Falcons offense was offensive in 2023, mostly because of their offensive line. They couldn’t run the ball, they couldn’t throw the ball, they couldn’t stay on the field. Their Defense is what helped their record.
GUESS WHAT, they didn’t address their OFFENSIVE line. Kirk Cousin will struggle, the Vikings line was much more solid.
Write it down, Falcons will compete with the Panthers for the bottom of the division.
May 9th, 2024 at 8:16 pm
Geez, if my Aunt had a dick she’d be my Uncle.
Pollan is an ole bag of oatmeal. Who listens?
May 9th, 2024 at 9:00 pm
Tucker Says:
May 9th, 2024 at 2:59 pm
Footwork is very important for every quarterback for accuracy and power especially an aging one, it’s not just in the arm munch.
———
I’d disagree with that – because if your arm goes, it doesn’t matter how good your footwork is – just look at Drew Brees.
Obviously you need your footwork to be at least acceptable, and an achilles injury isn’t going to help that, but he’s not playing LB or something, even if he’s only 75% on speed and quickness, he can certainly still play, as long as his arm holds out.
May 9th, 2024 at 9:15 pm
Cardiac kidz Says:
The Falcons offense was offensive in 2023, mostly because of their offensive line.
———-
Uh, yeah, just go google offensive line rankings – just pick anyone, read them all, then get back to me on that.
Anywho, spoiler alert, the Falcons have one of the better offensive lines in the NFL, according to pretty much every single source.
What Atlanta did have that was terrible – was their starting QB, who was literally the worst starting QB in the NFL.
To be clear, I’d love to see the Falcons fall on their face and have everything backfire – that would be hilarious – but I don’t see that happening as they have at least 2 QBs who are much better than what they had, and a much better scheme.
May 9th, 2024 at 10:07 pm
Shall I remind Polian that Cousins has had some really good offenses and defenses with the Vikings and STILL hasn’t won anything? His entire example is moot because Cousins has proven he’s not the missing piece. The Falcons as Joe pointed out have been losers for too long and didn’t win when Morris was interim head coach so again, prove it.
May 9th, 2024 at 10:08 pm
The Falcons will be a divided locker room sooner than later. Bank on it.
May 9th, 2024 at 10:25 pm
The disrespect continues for the Bucs.
My problem with the Atlanta thing is Cousins.
Who the heck decided that Cousins is the second coming of Tom Freaking Brady! We have the best QB in the NFC South
I look forward to Todd stopping their run game and forcing Cousins to try to beat us with the pass. Get ready YaYa!
Not saying he is a lousy QB but …Come On!
Atlanta got a descent Running back and a tight end who wowed folks…in college. Who else can carry either one of the QBS they spent a fortune on.
Just don’t see it. This whole thing is yet another media creation. Might as well say Carolina is gonna go undefeated and Bryce young is gonna be MVP.
Go Bucs!
May 10th, 2024 at 4:01 am
It’s a sickness.. Along with lazy writing, lazy intelligence gathering, lazy thoughts, Lazy research. Thus is the national media. Just a regurgitation of what some jack a mo with a platform thinks and sadly they are all in the same echo chamber even the ones we love. 😔 😟 🙁
May 10th, 2024 at 5:50 am
The Brady comparison neglects that Brady convinced Gronk, Fournette and Brown to join the team and Licht/Arians made it happen.
May 10th, 2024 at 7:04 am
Atlanta has no WR1 or WR2. The tall kid out of USC looks strongly like a one trick pony.
A nice trick… But no quickness to play at the NFL level Just another player who benefited by playing PAC12 defenses.
Like a certain RB the Bucs wasted a pick on in round 4… I hope he can at least return kicks.
May 11th, 2024 at 5:08 am
The biggest single upgrade in the division wasn’t at QB in Atlanta but at OC in Tampa. Coen over Canales is even bigger than Cousins over Ridder. Canales was in way over his head for close to 75% of the season. Now he’s Carolina’s problem.