Forgive me for saying this, but the Falcons 2024 Quarterback move is GENIUS!
Is it brilliant though? They could have not given Cousins that money and still drafted Penix and perhaps spent it on other positions of need.
I don’t understand why more teams don’t do stuff like that. The Redskins did something just like that with Cousins as well. They drafted RG3 at the very top of the draft and got Cousins later in the same draft. Which after RG3 became RG knee turned out to be a genius move.
When you don’t have a QB you don’t have a chance in the NFL. You’re going to struggle just to win games much less ever win a championship. I am not saying it can’t be done but you have to have just about everything go your way and the odds of that are almost nil.
That position is by far the most valuable/important position in football and taken even further all of professional sports. If you don’t have a QB the smart thing to do is zero in on a solution from multiple fronts. The browns draft “the guy” every 3-4 years. They put all their eggs into helping that guy and when he goes bust they tear the whole thing down and start over. It’s why their fans have suffered almost nothing but misery since they rejoined the league. It’s a slow process with one possible fix. Today what you’re seeing more of is a fast track Browns approach where a freshly drafted guy gets a year maybe 2 to prove himself then they get thrown in the trash next one comes in repeat the process. This is also stupid because sometimes QB’s take a ton of time to develop. The guy you throw out goes somewhere else and becomes Sam Darnold.
What the Falcons did was smart. You go out in free agency land the best QB you can get (this is after you stocked your team up with weapons). Then in that same offseason you draft a QB high. You’re paying one of them the other is on a rookie deal. That FA pickup works out cool if not you have the cheep rookie in your back pocket. If you go thru a season and the FA QB falters you can make that rookie the starter especially if he has shown you he can handle it. This also buys the GM and HC more time and most importantly the Falcons now have a disposable asset because for as bad as Cousins failed there are going to be at least a few teams out there that think Cousins is an upgrade for them and the Falcons just didn’t know how to use him. He can be traded away. The one place they did mess up on is giving him a no trade clause.
Considering the worth of the position more teams should consider making similar moves. What if the Browns had drafted 2 QB’s every time they used a high 1 on a QB and maybe mixed in a couple of franchise qb free agency pick ups every couple of seasons? I would bet they would have found a QB by now. The odds of doing so would sure be higher.
As for our plight yep we are paying Carr and we have 2 young guys. Heck they may both develop into stars or both be busts but so far neither has stood out and as a result we should draft another QB this off-season.
The position is too valuable to just stand around waiting for lightning to strike. We need to be running around out there with a lightning rod in hand trying to make lightning strike. Keep going after FA’s and keep drafting them.