The Atlanta Falcons making quarterback Michael Penix Jr. the eighth total choose of the 2024 NFL Draft after they signed veteran Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180M contract that included $100M assured in free company continues to baffle outsiders amid the early days of coaching camp.
Falcons proprietor Arthur Clean provided a powerful assertion concerning the membership’s present quarterback room whereas talking with reporters on Tuesday.
“Kirk Cousins is our franchise quarterback, is our beginning quarterback and he appears to be doing nice from a medical standpoint,” Clean mentioned whereas referencing Cousins’ ongoing restoration from the torn proper Achilles he suffered final October, as shared by D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Structure. “His angle, his management, culturally, personally, with our gamers, with the teaching employees, has been nothing in need of excellent. So, we couldn’t be happier with that scenario.”
As just lately as an interview launched this week, Cousins hasn’t sounded overly thrilled about the truth that Atlanta used a priceless draft asset to pick a participant who may replace him atop the depth chart as quickly as subsequent March. Clean and others inside the Falcons have repeatedly defended the Penix choose since this previous April and the proprietor hinted on Tuesday that Cousins is not assured something with the franchise past the upcoming marketing campaign.
“Kirk shall be 36 at the beginning of the season,” Clean mentioned. “We hope and pray he’s acquired three to 4 nice years in entrance of him, possibly past that. Who is aware of? However we additionally know that in some unspecified time in the future, there shall be a degree that we’ll want a transition. We wish to ensure we try this easily.”
As of early Wednesday afternoon, DraftKings Sportsbook listed what turned a win-now Atlanta workforce upon the signing of Cousins because the betting favourite at -120 odds to say the NFC South division title for this season. Clean understands some followers want the membership would’ve used the eighth alternative of this yr’s draft to bolster a unique a part of the roster contemplating many anticipate the 2024 Falcons to do greater than compete for only a playoff berth.
“For the time being, they could have preferred a unique participant,” Clean mentioned about Falcons supporters. “However in some unspecified time in the future, down the highway, they’ll wish to know that we will have a clean transition at that very essential place for the Atlanta Falcons within the Nationwide Soccer League.”
