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Kirk Cousins final Falcons stat line would make Arthur Smith's face melt

The newly-acquired QB set a franchise record in a wacky "TNF" win.
Austen Bundy
Austen Bundy

Fansided

New Orleans Saints v Atlanta Falcons / Todd Kirkland/GettyImages

The Atlanta Falcons should be 0-5 this year. The amount of games they've played where they were down and should've been buried late in the game but still somehow found a way to come out on top is astounding.

Thursday night against NFC South rival Tampa Bay was just the latest example of that insane trend. According to NextGen Stats, the Falcons had as low as a 4.7 percent chance of winning before its final possession.

Atlanta kicker Youngho-Koo missed a game-tying field goal late in the fourth quarter (twice due to an offside penalty), but had another opportunity to redeem himself with just seconds remaining. He nailed the 52-yard attempt as time expired and sent the game to overtime tied at 30 a piece.

Hurricane Kirk makes landfall early in Atlanta

The Falcons won the overtime coin toss and that was all quarterback Kirk Cousins needed to snag another victory from the jaws of defeat.

He only needed four plays to find wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge on a 45-yard breakaway for the game-winning touchdown.

Hodge blew past defenders like gale-force winds, coasting to the endzone on Cousins' incredible night (perhaps channeling the power of the storm named aptly after him currently spinning in the Atlantic).

Cousins threw for a franchise-record 509 yards on Thursday (set by Matt Ryan, who was in the building to witness it), that's more passing yards than the New England Patriots have so far this season as a franchise. His four touchdowns would've had former head coach Arthur Smith overwhelmed and thinking "that's too many points, save some for the rest of the season!"

Primetime Kirk now has a 6-4 record in night games, with 20 touchdowns and an average passer rating of 92.9. No one else in the league has more game-winning drives than Cousins (14) since 2021, and he even missed nine games last year.

Austen Bundy

Austen Bundy

Austen Bundy is a Contributor to Fansided.com with previous bylines at Yardbarker and CNN. Austen has had an on-again, off-again relationship with sports journalism, beginning in college with the Pac-12 Network at Arizona State University in 2015. He now resides in the Washington, D.C. area and covers the NHL (Go Caps!), College Football and some Olympic sports like Swimming. If it runs, skates, shoots and scores - you can probably find him watching that game.