Kirk Cousins, the new Atlanta Falcons quarterback, takes aim at a Super Bowl (2024)

Cooper Cousins, age six, keeps his eyes on his hands, and his hands are on the table. The Notre-Dame Cathedral lies in pieces before him on the distressed oak. LEGO’s newest architectural build debuted on June 1, and Kirk Cousins, your Atlanta Falcons starting quarterback, made the trek to North Point Mall, his most recent stop on a LEGO quest that began last season after he tore his Achilles as quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings.

“When we’re building LEGOs, we’re working together, we’re putting something together,” he says.

During his Achilles recovery across the Minnesota winter, Kirk, Cooper, and Turner (age five) built a lighthouse, a space shuttle, a globe, the house from Home Alone, and the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, where Kirk proposed to his wife, Julie.

He says that as a father, he wants to be intentional in the same way that he plays quarterback.

The Cousinses moved into their new house in Suwanee at the start of June. While this house is new, they are not new to metro Atlanta. Julie grew up in Alpharetta and graduated from Centennial High School, then the University of Georgia, and became a teacher. She and Kirk stayed here during offseasons. They have never really left Georgia.

For weeks at a time, the Cousinses lived in the basem*nt of Julie’s parents’ house. As Cousins built a career from a fourth-round draft pick to a four-time Pro Bowler, staying there saved money and provided stability. He worked out at a nearby park, ran in the neighborhood, and became a fixture at the local bagel spot. Now, they have their own Atlanta home. Julie estimates the move is 90 percent complete.

His office is across the hall, and it holds Cousins’s own project: his career. There are files, supplements, and a chiropractic table, where he gets work done daily at 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. Entering year 13 of his NFL career, he knows Super Bowls are not won in June, but foundations are forged then. This spring, after signing a four-year, $180 million free-agent contract with the Falcons, Cousins spent 12-hour days at the team facility in Flowery Branch extolling the value of process and habits.

Cousins’s calculus is this: Stack great daily habits in the film room and on the practice field, stack them in conversations and building relationships, and this tower of invisible hours will result in victories. Stick to this process, and the chances of winning a Super Bowl increase tenfold.

“You have to allow daily habits to compound in a way that gets you further than you ever thought possible,” he says. “I want to make sure that I am elevating those around me. That’s a big part of having success—being able to help others get where they want to go.”

On this day, as the home swirls with motion, among the photographers, streams of packages, phone calls for Julie, and swim meet prep, Cooper remains still. He looks up, holding a Quasimodo figurine. He explains that the cathedral is where the hunchback lives, and resumes building the eastern wall.

The Notre-Dame Cathedral took 182 winters to complete, a relatively quick project in the annals of cathedral start-ups. In 58 very long seasons, the Atlanta Falcons have yet to win a Super Bowl. Is this stacker of pieces and habits the quarterback to deliver? Can Kirk Cousins elevate a team, a franchise, a city? Will he be the first Falcon to hoist that seven-pound silver trophy skyward?

• • •

Julie was in the stands with Cooper at Green Bay when Kirk ruptured his Achilles. On the drive that morning, Cooper had lost his first tooth, and secured the fallen tooth in his pocket.

Cousins had entered week eight with the Minnesota Vikings leading the NFL in touchdown passes. He ranked third in passer rating and yards. The season was an affirmation of Cousins’s long devotion to habit. Since 2020, only Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills have thrown for more touchdowns.

“It was the best I had played that season, and potentially the last two or three years,” Cousins recalls. “I was really, really sharp that day, seeing coverage, throwing with accuracy, making quick decisions, protecting the football, leading, competing. I felt really good about where I was and where we were. We were ascending.”

In the fourth quarter, with a two-score lead, Cousins took the shotgun snap and planted to move up in the pocket, but instead of stepping forward, he lurched and hit the turf. “I knew my ankle was sufficiently hurt,” he says. “I knew I would not be finishing the game.”

Ten days, he figured. Anti-inflammatories. Behind the bench, inside the blue medical tent, he got the news. “When I put my leg up on the table, our foot and ankle surgeon put two fingers on the tendon area,” says Cousins. “He was feeling for a tendon that wasn’t there.”

The surgeon announced the rupture. The assistant trainer patted Cousins’s knee. He told him they would get a cart. It would be a few minutes, he said. Take some time for yourself.

Cousins lay back and looked up at the ceiling of the blue tent. The rumble of the crowd, stadium noises, the crack of pads, crescendoed around him. He said a quick prayer. He thought of his career. He thought about his family. Julie and Cooper were in the stands. How might this impact them?

On their way to the field, Julie told Cooper: “Dad is hurt. He might be upset. He’s not going to play again for a long time.”

They went into the tunnel and back to where Kirk was propped up and getting checked out. Julie knew that vast spaces of silence and winter lay ahead. She leaned in for a hug. Cooper put his hand on his father’s knee and patted.

“We’ll see you next year, Dad,” he said. “We’ll see you next year.”

Kirk recalls the moment and laughs. “I thought: I guess you’re right, buddy, yeah.”

• • •

Saint Sebastian, the patron saint to athletes, was not known to have a sense of humor. Galahad, on his quest for the grail, never knew the glory of morning ice treatment. But if there was ever an athlete to embrace the grind of recovery, it is Cousins.

On a dry-erase board in a Vikings training room, he created a power ranking of the greatest Achilles tears in history. It featured Judi Dench, Al Gore, Aaron Rodgers, and Brad Pitt—who tore his Achilles while playing Achilles in Troy.

At the top?

“Achilles himself; he did not have a full recovery,” Cousins says with a smile. “But this has happened to a lot of people who went on to do successful things in life. I took encouragement from that.”

On the ride home from Green Bay, the adventure for Cooper continued. He’d lost one tooth, when, amid the hum of the highway, out came another. But it slid from his fingers. Interior lights blinked on. Seats were searched. Floorboards too. Gone! A mystery. At home that night, Cooper wrote the Tooth Fairy about this first-tooth, second-tooth situation. He gingerly brushed his teeth. He placed the lone tooth in his tooth pillow and climbed into bed. In a day of surprises, with seasons ending and career paths bending, the Tooth Fairy didn’t shrug, succumb to self-pity, or short-change the process. Upon waking, Cooper found a five-dollar bill waiting.

• • •

All roads don’t lead back to Georgia, but for the Cousins family, they do. In January 2012, after three overtimes, Michigan State (with Cousins at quarterback) defeated Georgia in the Outback Bowl. Cousins handled his postgame media duties, then met Julie Hampton. For months before the game was set, a mutual friend had been trying to introduce them.

“He was so nice. Humble,” Julie says. “He was exactly the kind of guy I would like to date.”

Kirk asked for her number, and she hoped he would call. He was enamored. But first, he needed to be shored up and solid about the future. The timing had to be right. He’d call Julie after the NFL draft. The draft was in April. Three months after the Outback Bowl.

Cousins landed in Washington (a two-hour flight from Atlanta), but he was picked in the fourth round of the same draft where the team spent its first pick on another quarterback, the Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III.

Back in Georgia, Julie had made choices too. “I had moved on,” she says. When Kirk asked her out, she said no, because she’d met someone else. But later, when that relationship didn’t work out, she agreed to a date. They would go to Stone Mountain Park.

Julie didn’t want to try to impress him. “I wanted to show him—this is me,” she
says. “This is my home. This is how I spend my days in the summer. And then see how we fit.”

Both were nervous. How do you depressurize a first date that felt destined, yet was delayed for over a year? When they got out of the car at the park, they were greeted by a local 10-year-old kid. His mom worked and dropped him off in the mornings. He welcomed them to Stone Mountain and asked if he could join their hike. “Looking back,” Julie says, “I think he was an angel, honestly. He stayed with us for hours.”

The kid provided an introduction for Kirk to Atlanta, and provided Julie a glimpse into Kirk. He asked the kid questions. The kid had questions for Kirk. Was this their first date? Yes. Were they going to kiss or what? They laughed. Julie saw that Kirk was curious, kind. She saw that Kirk Cousins did not have to make every conversation about Kirk Cousins.

After the Lasershow, after they’d said goodbye to young Mr. Icebreaker, Kirk took Julie out for dinner. Their destination? Outback Steakhouse. From the bowl game, Kirk had a gift card he’d been keeping in his back pocket.

Two years later, they were married at The Gardens at Great Oaks in Roswell. Julie insisted on dance lessons. Kirk was coachable. Their song was Mat Kearney’s “Young Dumb and in Love.” Friends and family joined them on the dance floor. Drenched in sweat, Kirk couldn’t stop dancing and smiling. He didn’t want folks to leave. He didn’t want the night to end. Julie had to tell him it was almost midnight. It was time.

• • •

Former Falcons coach Jerry Glanville once famously said that “NFL” means “Not For Long.” The average quarterback’s career is four years. Kirk Cousins has tripled that mark. Julie had no idea it would last this long. She would’ve been happy to stay in Minnesota or go to any NFL city.

But she’s thrilled it worked out this way. At the store, instead of Kirk getting stopped by fans, she runs into old friends. She has two older brothers who live five minutes from her parents. Between Julie’s uncles and aunts, there are over 70 family members in Atlanta, and most have bought Falcons season tickets in a block deemed “Cousins Corner.”

Julie misses teaching, and next year she will homeschool Cooper and Turner, first grade and kindergarten. The Falcons schedule sets up with a slate of Monday- and Thursday-night games. They want those trips to be family occasions. Recently, they all trekked to a family wedding in Johns Creek on the same weekend they celebrated a niece’s first birthday. “Now we get to actually do life with family,” Julie says.

On those drives, they play Randy Newman’s jazz-inspired “Down in New Orleans” from the soundtrack to Disney’s The Princess and the Frog. The Cousins family sings along with Dr. John in a story about dreams that come true:

In the Southland there’s a city
Way down on the river
Where the women are very pretty
And all the men deliver

The Super Bowl will be in New Orleans on February 9. Julie smiles, and Cooper nods. “We’re setting a mood,” she says.

• • •

It’s the last day of mandatory minicamp in Flowery Branch. Under June skies and billowy clouds, Kirk Cousins leads the first team straight down the field. A digital clock in the corner of the end zone keeps time. Officials have flags in the back pockets of their shorts, but it’s unclear why. The defense (shorts, too) wear helmets, no pads. No hitting here, folks. The simulated 11-on-11 at quarter speed gives the offense a feel, a vibe, a look.

Cousins calls out the play. With the snap, he slow-motion-pumps through each of his progressions, then lofts a ball in the flat to Bijan Robinson, who darts up the sideline. The officials move the sticks with invisible chains. First down, Falcons.

Cousins hurries, barks the next play, directs the motion, checks his receivers, points out protections—hut hut. The receivers and backs zip downfield as Cousins scans the field under a soft-blue sky.

• • •

Every quarterback must keep time on several clocks at once. “That’s the biggest challenge playing quarterback,” Cousins says. “The ability to process quickly while a rush is closing in on you, and to make the right decision, knowing that it has to be made fast.”

Last season, Cousins averaged 2.86 seconds per snap to release.

This core skill fits his understanding of the position. He is a distributor, he says. “Ball gets in my hands. Now, how quickly and accurately can I get it to the right place?” Very, the numbers say, and it’s the primary reason for Falcons optimism.

Look at who Kirk Cousins gets to distribute the ball to: tight end Kyle Pitts, who three seasons ago had one of the greatest rookie seasons for a tight end in NFL history. Drake London, the lengthy wideout with incredible hands. And the mercurial running back Bijan Robinson. All three were first-round picks in consecutive years, but unsteady quarterback play and uneven coaching have cut short their potential.

On the field, Cousins leads another slow-motion scoring drive. Slow is smooth, the adage goes, and smooth is fast. If these steps become so ingrained, he will not be moved by panic into a mistake. Habits, processes. Slow, so smooth. Smooth, so quicksilver.

The quicker the delivery, the more frustrated the defense, the more encouraged the offensive line, the more love backs and receivers feel. Everyone elevates. This can take years. The Falcons and Cousins don’t have years. “I’m trying to speed-read and get more ground covered in a short amount of time,” Cousins says.

Head coach Raheem Morris notices: “When he first got here, he was able to go back and watch all Drake’s catches, all Kyle’s catches, all Bijan’s catches, all the things that they did from a football standpoint.” The film work gave way to field work. The unit repped, corrected course, repped, had conversations, and repped some more.

Robinson, the second-year back, noted Cousins’s capacity for quality control. “He’s that particular in what he does and how he calls plays, how he throws the ball, how he tries to angle everything, even how he hands off the ball. He’ll always ask me, ‘Was that good? Is it good enough?’”

Drake London, the 6-foot-4, 213-pound wide receiver, has been the primary beneficiary of those drafts. “Things that he sees, I can see now,” London says.

When asked what we’ll see in the fall, he says, “Ball gonna be in the air.”

Ball in the air in the fall means ball in the air in June. It requires trust, reps, feel.

“He’s got a real good feel of what his guys are able to do,” Coach Morris says. “So his speed-reading is part of his process. How he writes it all down. He’s able to paint the pictures. And those things are forming around him, and it is all getting tied together.”

If the Falcons’ season comes together, one more critical step remains. Like the house in Suwanee that’s almost completely moved into, Cousins feels almost back with the Achilles. “It doesn’t feel quite natural,” he says.

Daily life on a repaired Achilles is one thing. The NFL is another. “I’ve got to get to a place where it’s able to withstand unique forces,” he says.

The weight of an average front seven in the NFL is about a ton. Roughly the same weight as those swinging bronze cathedral bells. The mass and force of an NFL defense, however, are distributed unevenly and swing at various speeds, countless angles, with innumerable disguises, week after week, down after down, for 17 games.

Only 2.8 seconds. Make the read. See your progressions. Deliver. Don’t blink.

On this day, there are no swinging bells, no subconcussive hits, no blue tents, and no quarterback controversy. When Cousins comes off the field, backup Taylor Heinicke takes his place. While some pundits wondered if there would be quarterback drama after the Falcons selected Michael Penix Jr. in the first round (as there was in Washington with Griffin), the hierarchy is clear. Cousins’s production is proven. He is smart enough, old enough to coach. He is in command. As with all things in the NFL (Not For Long), this is subject to change. But it is Cousins’s team.

This season, once again, Cousins will bet on his habits and process. In a pyramid of blue bins, he’s stored every note, game plan, and review of his play. In the offseason, he opens up the files and works on his own project.

“How do I want to develop myself as a player?” he says. To help inform that, he has watched Peyton Manning’s MVP season from 10 years ago. At age 37, Manning was recovering from multiple surgeries to his neck. That year, he set the NFL record for touchdown passes (55) in a single season. He was sacked only 18 times, and his average release time was 2.3 seconds. “There is that clock that you need to respect,” says Cousins. “If you don’t, this league will make you look pretty silly pretty quick.”

The clock in the corner of the end zone hits zero, and practice concludes. The press corps ambles to the corner of the field for the media scrum as the team trots to midfield.

“Speed,” Drake London says on his way out, and then, with a smile: “Slow feet don’t eat.”

Kirk and Cooper are flying to Minnesota to host an annual camp. In the air, he can see all the pieces. The Achilles: close. London. Pitts. Robinson. Was that good?

Leaving Flowery Branch, his progression goes: Seat belt. Ignition. Press play: The Princess and the Frog. Track three. Set repeat. Audible from highways to back roads as Dr. John’s voice dips and rises with the road. Turn the volume up and roll the windows down, and float over the Chattahoochee as the zydeco and piano rip and soar and the horns blow with the breeze and fireflies dot the line of trees. Sit back, and you too may want to dream. Crazy stuff. The wildest things. Bourbon Street decked in red, tinsel silver, painted black.

• • •

Before he took a snap in the NFL, Kirk Cousins landed at Hartsfield-Jackson, rented a car, spotted the Capitol dome, the city skyline, and hit the brakes. Traffic. He inched up the Connector to 285 and 400 and found Julie Hampton’s home. Hours later, he sat atop Stone Mountain above that skyline with a kid he’d never met and wouldn’t see again and Julie, the girl who would become the woman who would become his wife. In the clouds, the three sipped slushies.

Kirk Cousins hears the dad jokes. Yes, he drove his grandmother’s 2014 GMC conversion van. Sure, he uses Kohl’s Cash. Do pregame motivational talks include lines from Kung Fu Panda? Skadoo*sh! But if we only laugh, we might miss the fullness of the man. Father, from Middle English, as in “author,” or “create,” or “that which allows something else to rise up.”

Making an offseason home in the wooded and winding neighborhood in Alpharetta allowed Kirk and Julie both to elevate. That home proved to be a port away from the churn of NFL life. It bore them up when Kirk played year to year in Washington, and welcomed them after the season ended in Minnesota. As a fan, Kirk attended the last Falcons games in the Georgia Dome in 2017 as the home team bested Seattle in the NFC Division game, and then Green Bay in the NFC Championship, on their way to the Super Bowl.

While Achilles might bear the name of the tendon, and the top spot in this quarterback’s power ranking, Cousins’s circuitous journey suggests Odysseus, Homer’s other action hero. The good father, devoted husband, wily veteran, using all the tools available.

“I’m going to be 36 this fall,” he says. “Most of my teammates are 26 and younger, and so it feels different. There’s an age gap. But it is a positive, I think, where I can come in and have ownership and assert myself, and lead in a way that they’re really listening, as opposed to when I was the younger player.”

For their 10th wedding anniversary, Kirk and Julie are going to dance again to “Young Dumb and in Love.” They’re no longer young, exactly, but still in love. A love that’s bound to this new, old home. “When I come back here, I thrive,” Julie says. “Just feeling the support, knowing I can call my parents and they’re there to help if I need them.” In each NFL stop, Julie has surrounded herself with friends. But family is family. “It’s just different being home.”

At dawn, in the heart of the neighborhood where Kirk first knocked on Julie’s door, deer walk across the wide lawns and step between rose-flushed azaleas. Amid the canopy of dogwood and magnolias, blue jays and robins dart as, high in the pines, the hawks and owls perch. From a church spire, the morning bell tolls.

“We’ll see you next year, Dad,” Cooper told his old man at Lambeau Field. Indeed. That next year is now.

This article appears in our August 2024 issue.