Bucs will face their personal boogeyman on Thursday, and there’s zero excuse not to finally get the best of him
Tampa Bay has to find a way to handle Kirk Cousins like the rest of the NFL has recently.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are currently in a playoff position, tied with the Carolina Panthers at 7-6 for the NFC South lead but ahead by a hair due to a tiebreaker (wins over common opponents). But after losing to rookie QB Tyler Shough and the hapless New Orleans Saints 24-20 on Sunday at home, they sure do not feel like a playoff team right now.
The Bucs have face planted since their Week 9 bye, losing four of five games and seeing their vice grip on the division transform into an open palm. They have a defense who simply can’t stop untimely big plays from happening, and offensively, the run game is inconsistent, and the passing game has become disjointed, with rookie standout Emeka Egbuka taking a step back.
What appears to be the perfect elixir is on deck for Tampa Bay – the 4-9 Atlanta Falcons coming to Tampa on a short week. The Falcons just got their doors blown off at home by Seattle 37-9 on Sunday.
But there’s a man who’ll be running onto the field for Atlanta who has given the Bucs nightmares in the form of Kirk Cousins. So, all bets are off for Thursday night, even though they shouldn’t be.
Bucs have no excuse to not shut down Falcons QB Kirk Cousins on Thursday night
Cousins, as every Bucs fan knows, has been the franchises’ bugaboo for years. It started back in 2015, when he rallied Washington from a 24-0 deficit to win 31-30. He completed 33/40 attempts for 317 yards and three touchdowns, with the last one coming in the final seconds for the win.
Last year, the Bucs made him look like an All-Pro before he was benched in favor of Michael Penix, Jr. On Thursday Night Football in October, he torched the Bucs’ defense for an Atlanta franchise record 509 passing yards in a 36-30 overtime win over Tampa Bay.
In the return match in Tampa, he didn’t go off quite as much yardage-wise, but he had another highly impactful performance in the Falcons’ 31-26 win. He completed 23 of 29 passes for 276 yards, four touchdowns, no picks, and a season-high 145.9 passer rating.
Now, the Falcons stagger in as losers of seven of their last eight games. Cousins has one game where he’s passed for more than 200 yards this season – 236 in a 27-24 loss to the New York Jets. His best game came in a win at the Saints three weeks ago, where he went 16/23 for 199 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. Nothing world beating, to state the obvious.
Part of me wants to immediately say throw all that out the window on Thursday night. But no, it should not be thrown out the window. The Falcons are terrible, and Cousins has been subpar. That’s who he is as a quarterback nowadays. Really, he’s never been as good as the Bucs have made him look when they’ve faced him.
It’s time they start playing against him like just about every other team in the league has in 2025. Because if they don’t, they’ll see their season truly slip away, and Todd Bowles will have some serious questions about his leadership and the direction of the franchise to answer in the aftermath.
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