NFC Notes: Kirk Cousins, Bryce Young, Falcons, Panthers, Saints

Falcons

Falcons QB Kirk Cousins struggled in his Atlanta debut and played more out of the pistol with less play action than ever before. Falcons HC Raheem Morris believes Cousins is healthy despite speculation around the league that the Achilles is hindering him.

“I feel like Kirk is healthy,” Morris said, via Terrin Waack of the team’s official website. “He’s been healthy since he’s been here, since he’s been back.”

“Everything is going to be situational to the game plan for who you’re playing against. When you go out and you put those guys in what we do and how we want to play and try to put those guys in good positions to get those guys blocked, the aliens the Pittsburgh Steelers have, you gotta try to figure those things out.”

Panthers

Carolina was blown out 47-10 in their first game under new HC Dave Canales. After the game, Canales discussed his overall disappointment in their lack of execution in every aspect of the game.

“Well, certainly not the outcome that I was hoping for,” Canales said, via Anthony Rizzuti of the Panthers Wire. “Before I even got to watch the film—I can just talk about three turnovers, in the teens in explosives that we gave up on the defensive side, a blocked punt.”

“Those are critical factors. It flips the field, it gives them more possessions. And even when we had our chances, we didn’t get our first completion for a while there. So, just all around, poor execution in all phases.”

Carolina QB Bryce Young expressed his disappointment in a rough season debut but understands they have plenty of time to turn the season around and get where they want to be. 

“Of course, you want to come out and start on a high note. It didn’t happen today and that’s tough,” Young added, via the team’s YouTube. “We’re going to wear that today. We’re going to learn from it when we turn the film on tomorrow.”

“But that doesn’t define us. Obviously, [it’s] a long year and we have to attack it with urgency and make sure that we’re urgent about cleaning things up and fix what we’ve got to fix. But we’ve got to turn the page. Again, it’s a tough league. Would’ve been great to win a game — obviously, the goal is to win everyone. It wasn’t the case. So, that’s how it is. We’ve got to turn the page and then focus on next week.”

Saints

New Orleans dominated the Panthers in their Week 1 game despite a lot of pessimism surrounding the team before the season. Saints HC Dennis Allen discussed how they are tuning out the outside noise and focusing on performing at their best.

“I told the team this today: There’s a lot of people outside the building that didn’t think we were capable of doing much,” Allen said, via Luke Johnson of NOLA.com. “Those same people are probably saying a lot of great things about you today that were saying a lot of negative things about you before yesterday’s game. So we try not to pay much attention to that, we’re trying to focus on what our job is, what we need to do, and how we get better. We know we’re going to have an extremely tough challenge this Sunday going up to Dallas.”

• Saints TE Foster Moreau is in concussion protocol after leaving Sunday’s game against the Panthers. (Katherine Terrell)
• According to Nick Underhill, Saints CB Marshon Lattimore suffered a minor hamstring injury Sunday and his status is in question for Week 2.