Who Should I Start? Kirk Cousins or Geno Smith

Thursday, July 10, 1:51 PM

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins said in an episode of the Netflix series "Quarterback" that he felt "a little bit misled" when the Falcons took Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 overall in the 2024 NFL draft. It came just after Atlanta signed Cousins to a contract worth at least $100 million guaranteed to be their starter in 2024 and beyond. "I had no reason to leave Minnesota with how much we loved it there if both teams are going to be drafting a quarterback high," Cousins said. The 36-year-old led the team to a 6-3 start before injuring his right shoulder. After that, the Falcons lost four straight games, with Cousins throwing eight interceptions and no touchdowns in that stretch. He was eventually benched in Week 16 for Penix, who heads into 2025 as the unquestioned starter, with Cousins backing him up. Cousins could get traded during training camp, but for now he's useless in fantasy as a backup.

Friday, May 30, 12:13 PM

The Athletic's Tashan Reed writes that so far this offseason, things have gone smoothly as Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Geno Smith and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly have acclimated to one another. "Geno's literally like a second coach," Kelly said. "When you're in that room with him and Greg Olson, there's a lot of ideas going around. And then it's just a matter of corralling it. Because sometimes you can have too many ideas. Like, let's try to do a million things, and then you don't get good at one thing. But his football acumen is really off the charts, and it's impressive to be around him." Under Kelly, the Raiders want their offense to remain amorphous with flexibility to apply to their personnel groupings. Kelly is well-known for operating with plenty of wideouts, but Vegas also plans to use multi-tight-end sets frequently. Smith has a better TE to work with, but his weapons overall will be a downgrade from his last few years in Seattle. Consider him a high-end QB2/low-end QB1 in fantasy in his new digs.