INDIANAPOLIS — Quarterback Kirk Cousins threw the NFL world for a loop earlier this month when he revealed on "Good Morning Football" that he injured his right shoulder and elbow during the Atlanta Falcons' Week 10 loss to the New Orleans Saints.
And apparently, it lingered.
"From there, (I was) kind of dealing with that," Cousins said Feb. 4. "It was something that I was working through and just never really could get it to where I wanted it."
The severity of that injury was not shared with the Falcons.
Cousins played every offensive snap in the Week 10 loss, completing 23 of his 38 passes for 306 yards and an interception. He appeared on the following Wednesday's estimated injury report as limited due to his right shoulder and elbow, but he was a full participant Thursday and Friday in actual practice and did not receive a game designation for the Falcons' Week 11 game against the Denver Broncos. Cousins did not appear on another injury report through the remainder of the season.
That was essentially the recap Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot provided Tuesday at the 2025 NFL Combine.
"He was on the injury report that one week," Fontenot said. "When a player's injured, we put him on the injury report. That's the only time he was on the injury report. So, as far as we're concerned, that's the only injury we were aware of."
Week 10 was the first of four consecutive losses for the Falcons, the beginning of Cousins' 2024 downfall as starter.
In those four games, Cousins threw eight interceptions, no touchdowns. He started the Falcons' Week 15 win against the Las Vegas Raiders, ending his touchdown drought with a pass to Drake London, but it was too little too late. Before Atlanta's Week 16 game against the New York Giants, the Falcons named rookie Michael Penix Jr. the starting quarterback.
"The reason we made the change when we made it was because we had some bad decisions go along that way," Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said. "It was well-documented the interceptions that we threw. It was well-documented the amount of touchdowns we had at that point. And it was well-documented the trust and the confidence that I had for us to be able to bounce back. So, when we didn't do those things, you have to make those changes."
Fontenot also made it clear the quarterback switch was "a football decision" and not injury related.
Any conversations between the Falcons and Cousins since the "Good Morning Football" segment have been deemed private.
Atlanta maintains its player performance team did everything correct when it came to reporting injuries to the league throughout the season. Whether a player decides to withhold injury information is not within the team's control. Cousins appeared to have gone about his business as usual, and therefore, so did the Falcons.
"I was there," Morris said. "I watched his practice. I watched us go through the process. So, I felt the same way I feel about it now: We put the best person out there in order for us to try to get a win every single week, and that was the decision that was made."
