Kirk Cousins throws his way to a Week 5 MVP honor

In Week 1, Kirk Cousins had an anemic start to his Atlanta Falcons career, throwing for a measly 155 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. He looked cautious, the game plan didn’t appear to suit him, and there was a little bit of early panic fluttering about the fanbase.

Patience, we were told, and things got better. Cousins looked shaky in Week 2 but pulled it all together in the end for a 241 yard, two touchdown performance. In Weeks 3 and 4, he threw for a combined 468 yards and one touchdown against a pair of picks. If it wasn’t particularly tangible progress statistically, Cousins was beginning to move a little better and look more comfortable in the offense. Patience.

That patience paid off in an unexpected, phenomenal way against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Wheeling and dealing like vintage Kirk Cousins and proving that Kirktober nickname is a fitting one, Cousins came out firing and didn’t stop until the game was won. When his day was over, Cousins had thrown the ball 58 times in the face of a feckless ground game and a need to propel his team back from the brink, and he finished with a franchise single game record of 509 yards and four touchdowns. There were blemishes, including a fourth and long interception and a couple of errant throws, but very rarely is a quarterback perfect. Cousins was fantastic.

Predictably, he’s also this week’s Falcons MVP. On a day where the Falcons allowed 24 first half points and could have been out of the game entirely with a lesser performance from Cousins, he absorbed sacks and watched a couple of tough Darnell Mooney drops and didn’t blink, continually going back to Drake London and Mooney while still spreading the ball around. He passed the Falcons to victory in this game, and by doing so, proved that patience was all we really needed.

I wrote after every game this year that I fully expected Cousins to return to form at some point, but I wasn’t sure it would be this soon or this form. While he’s not going to pass for 500 yards every week, if the Falcons can get a Cousins this sharp and this accurate regularly, they’re going to be difficult to stop.