{"id":390831,"date":"2025-09-23T14:36:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/390831\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T14:36:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:36:07","slug":"raheem-on-decision-to-play-kirk-cousins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/390831\/","title":{"rendered":"Raheem on decision to play Kirk Cousins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Falcons head coach on decision to sit Michael Penix Jr. late against the Carolina Panthers.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Penix said his headset was going in and out, but got better as the game went on. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Falcons?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#Falcons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Marc Raimondi (@marcraimondi) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/marcraimondi\/status\/1969859744040132982?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">September 21, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Things got ugly for the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefalconswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/falcons\/2025\/09\/21\/falcons-panthers-live-updates-score\/86273683007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Falcons<\/a> in their 30-0 loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefalconswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/falcons\/2025\/09\/21\/falcons-panthers-live-updates-score\/86273683007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carolina Panthers<\/a>. Once the team was trailing by 27 points early in the fourth quarter, head coach Raheem Morris pulled quarterback Michael Penix Jr. for veteran Kirk Cousins.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The game was out of hand,&#8221; Morris said when asked why he benched Penix. &#8220;You know, you move on. Keep him out of harm&#8217;s way. Keep our guys out of harm&#8217;s way. Took a couple players out&#8230; The game was out of hand. They got us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Penix struggled throughout the game and the offense had zero rhythm. After feeding Bijan Robinson last week against the Vikings, the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/atlanta-falcons\/323\" data-autotag=\"55e278ca-caf0-429b-8b4a-caeb78bff5ff\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Falcons<\/a> took a more pass-happy approach which produced drastically different results. Penix had two interceptions, including a pick-six, while passing for 172 yards.<\/p>\n<p>When asked whether or not Cousins would have a chance to compete for the starting job, Morris gave a firm &#8220;no.&#8221; The Falcons head coach just felt it was a bad day for the entire team, including Penix.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I just think he missed his throws today,&#8221; said Morris while maintaining confidence in his young quarterback. &#8220;I don&#8217;t worry about Mike&#8217;s confidence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Penix was disappointed in himself following the game. That lack of rhythm on offense was partially affected by the quarterback&#8217;s helmet microphone not working in the first quarter.<\/p>\n<p>This led to two wasted timeouts in the first half, which cost the team possible points before halftime. Penix acknowledged this but was unwilling to use it as an excuse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I gotta make those plays,&#8221; Penix said after Sunday&#8217;s loss. &#8220;I&#8217;ve gotta find my guys that are open&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When asked about Morris&#8217; decision to play Cousins, Penix said he respects it, but that he prefers to play.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m never OK with not playing,&#8221; Penix explained. &#8220;End of the day, I listen to my head coach.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Judging by his body of work, it&#8217;s safe to assume Penix will bounce back just fine. He has at every other stage of his career.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Falcons head coach on decision to sit Michael Penix Jr. late against the Carolina Panthers. Penix said his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[247,265,223,254,2554,10498,4127,7858,224,7,20842,1070,3604,294,6126,1879,248,267,330,88,6,35196,245,338,7853,101,1602,1982,9,266,1980],"class_list":{"0":"post-390831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-atlanta","11":"tag-atlanta-falcons","12":"tag-atlantafalcons","13":"tag-bijan","14":"tag-bijan-robinson","15":"tag-cousins","16":"tag-falcons","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-hub","19":"tag-jr","20":"tag-kirk","21":"tag-kirk-cousins","22":"tag-michael","23":"tag-michael-penix-jr","24":"tag-national","25":"tag-national-sports","26":"tag-negative","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-nfl","29":"tag-nfl-hub","30":"tag-overall","31":"tag-overall-negative","32":"tag-penix","33":"tag-robinson","34":"tag-smg","35":"tag-smg-timely","36":"tag-sports","37":"tag-sports-news","38":"tag-timely"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115254118750038578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}