{"id":239249,"date":"2025-10-25T13:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T13:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239249\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T13:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T13:10:08","slug":"sources-falcons-highly-likely-to-start-kirk-cousins-vs-dolphins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239249\/","title":{"rendered":"Sources: Falcons highly likely to start Kirk Cousins vs. Dolphins"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Marc RaimondiOct 25, 2025, 09:03 AM ET<\/p>\n

Close<\/a>Marc Raimondi’s first year covering the Falcons was 2024, but it wasn’t his first year at ESPN. He joined the company in 2019 and was a top combat sports reporter. He also covered professional wrestling and wrote the book “Say Hello to the Bad Guys: How Pro Wrestling’s New World Order Changed America,” which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. Raimondi also worked for the New York Post and Newsday, beginning in 2009, covering high school and college sports, plus the NFL, NFL, MLB and NHL.<\/p>\n

Kirk Cousins<\/a> is “highly likely” to be the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> starting quarterback Sunday against the Miami Dolphins<\/a>, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Michael Penix Jr<\/a>., the team’s starter, suffered a bone bruise in his left knee in last week’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers<\/a>. Penix was limited in practice the last two days and was listed Friday as questionable for Sunday’s game.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

On Friday, Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said Cousins had taken “significant” reps this week in practice and more reps later in the week rather than earlier.<\/p>\n

“I’m really confident in our backup,” Morris said Friday of Cousins. “We’re gonna give [Penix] every opportunity we can give him. The kid is tough. He’s a guy, he’s a stud.”<\/p>\n

The expected start for Cousins seems fitting. Saturday marks the 10-year anniversary of Washington’s 31-30 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> — and Cousins’ famous postgame quote: “You like that?!”<\/p>\n

Cousins, 37, helped get the Falcons off to a 6-3 start last season before he struggled with nine interceptions during a five-game stretch after injuring his right elbow and shoulder in Week 10. Cousins was benched in favor of Penix, then a rookie, in Week 16 last season.<\/p>\n

Penix has gone 4-5 as a starter, including the Falcons’ 3-3 record this season. The second-year quarterback hasn’t quite find his rhythm yet in the league. Penix has completed 61% of his passes this season for 1,409 yards with five touchdowns and three interceptions. He has a 47.7 QBR, the 22nd best number in the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc RaimondiOct 25, 2025, 09:03 AM ET CloseMarc Raimondi’s first year covering the Falcons was 2024, but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-239249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}