After being one of the main reasons for Atlanta's ascension to potential contender, Kirk Cousins is now shouldering the blame in the Falcons' latest loss of their three-game spiral.
Fresh off the bye with a chance to snap a losing streak and move to 7-5, Cousins' Falcons instead fell short, 17-13, against the visiting Los Angeles Chargers and fell back to .500, bogged down by the quarterback's four interceptions in a loss decided by the same number of points.
"I look to myself and say, 'I've got to play better,'" Cousins said postgame, via ESPN. "It hurts. When you feel like your defense played winning football, feel like your special teams made big plays, felt like the run game [did] a solid job, I've got to play better."
It is customary for a quarterback and leader to volunteer fault for a loss, but while there were other gaffes -- namely a missed 35-yard field goal by Younghoe Koo -- such a complete performance by Atlanta in nearly every other facet makes doing so somewhat redundant.
For as good as Cousins was earlier in the season, he let a narrow 17-13 result get away from him.
The Falcons defense, last in the league in sacks coming into the contest, found Chargers QB Justin Herbert five times, and without running back J.K. Dobbins to contend with put a lid on Los Angeles' offense by allowing just 187 total yards. Meanwhile, Atlanta running back Bijan Robinson went over the century mark on the ground, carrying it 26 times for 102 yards and a score. Cousins and Co. managed 350 total yards and had 24 first downs to the Chargers' 10.
Turnovers -- and the scoreboard -- is nearly the only place the Falcons lost.
Cousins' first pick came on a pass floated too high while leading, 7-3, at the open of the second quarter. He threw his second of the game and second to Tarheeb Still at the tail end of the third quarter, a boundary pass read and cut-off by the rookie for a pick-six that proved to be the game-winning score.
Still with a shot to come back, Cousins instead threw interceptions on both of his fourth-quarter possessions, a no-chancer into triple coverage in the end zone picked off by Marcus Maye and a desperate fourth-and-12 chuck in L.A. territory to Derwin James with 47 seconds remaining.
That spelled the end of an ugly performance, Cousins' first four-interception outing since 2014 and one that brings his TD-to-INT ratio to 0-6 during the team's three-game skid.
The Falcons are now 6-6, still in charge of the NFC South but with a razor-thin margin over their final five games of the season compared to the runaway possibility they were envisioning a month ago.
Despite Cousins' struggles, head coach Raheem Morris acknowledged the still-there playoff path and iterated his utmost confidence in the veteran QB following the defeat.
"Kirk was brought here to put us in a playoff position," Morris said. "Everything is still right in front of us. We're still sticking with our plan."
The coach added: "He's been great for us all season and it's hard to throw that guy under the bus."
Not under it, Cousins is still the man trusted to drive the bus, but he'll have to do so a whole lot better for the Falcons to get where they ultimately want to go.
