Last season, Kirk Cousins didn’t just throw a football. He threw an entire franchise under the bus and then reversed for dramatic effect. During the second season of Quarterback on Netflix, the veteran quarterback revealed the truth about his move to Atlanta. And spoiler alert: it’s not the love story the Falcons PR team pitched back in 2024.

It turns out that Cousins felt “misled” and not just shocked by the Michael Penix Jr. selection. That’s not a word players drop casually. That’s a word you use when you feel like you’ve been sold a future that didn’t include a plot twist during the draft. And what came next was more of a callout than a confession. And Dan Le Batard? He noticed. Loud and clear.

By the time Quarterback Season 2 hit Netflix, Kirk Cousins had already gone from face of the Falcons to $100M backup. But now, he’s adding ‘truth-teller’ to the resume. And the Dan Le Batard Show? They’re digging deeper into what he’s selling. Le Batard opened his segment with classic confusion: “One of the more curious stories last year… Kirk Cousins in Atlanta, and he has finally said on the new Netflix series Quarterbacks, he’s still in Atlanta, by the way.” His crew also took sarcastic jabs at Cousins like they couldn’t believe he was still on the roster – until they heard it from the man himself. But then came the kicker. Le Batard said, “He [Kirk] said a little bit misled…And I thought it was fair criticism from him.” That’s not a side comment. That’s taking a side.

Cousins, for the first time on camera, admitted what many suspected: he would’ve stayed in Minnesota if Atlanta had been honest. “If I had that information around free agency, it would’ve affected my decision. I had no reason to leave Minnesota, with how much we loved it there,” Kirk Cousins said. He wasn’t told they’d draft a quarterback. Not before signing. Not even a whisper. That whisper finally came while the Falcons were on the clock. Cousins had already signed. The ink wasn’t even dry. 

Mike Ryan chimed in with a heavy dose of cynicism on the Dan Le Batard show: “He’s just there, being lied to by Atlanta.” And Jonathan Zaslow tried to play devil’s advocate: “He was terrible, and then they pulled the plug. That wasn’t their intention to pull the plug on him. They would have desperately wanted Michael Penix to take zero snaps last year. He took snaps because Cousins was bad.” Fair point. But also? The Falcons clearly weren’t all in. They drafted a quarterback at 8. That’s not hedging. That’s building a new future. Because from the moment he walked into Atlanta, Kirk Cousins thought he was the guy. Instead, he got the basement. Not metaphorically. Literally.

Kirk Cousins fights to be seen

After getting benched in the last season, he went home, called Penix to congratulate him, and then disappeared into the garage. His wife, Julie, called it one of their hardest weeks as a couple. The NFL didn’t just bruise him on Sundays. This time, it came from upstairs. And yet, as heavy as it was, his youngest son, 6-year-old Turner, somehow made it make sense in the most innocent, heartbreaking way.

“It’s OK, you’re kicked off the team,” Turner told him, “because now you can spend more time with us playing football in the basement.” Cousins laughed as he recalled it on the show. “I always said that I wanted to play long enough so that my boys would be able to understand what daddy does,” he said. “And those comments reminded me that I may still have to play a little longer for them to truly understand what dad does.”

So, Cousins played through injuries – elbow, shoulder, ribs – all in the name of keeping his job. The numbers? Brutal. Eight picks, one touchdown, and a nosedive into the NFC South basement. The reason? He didn’t want to get Wally Pipp’d. “If you sit down Week 10 and take two or three weeks or more to let it heal, you may never get your job back,” Cousins said.

But off the field, Cousins just wanted to belong. Really belong. He wanted to be known, not as QB1 of the moment, but as a guy that Atlanta had come to embrace. He hit up Cook Out after wins. Even ordered water over Roy Rogers to stay locked in. Every episode of Quarterback was him trying to blend in and stand out at the same time. And yet nobody even recognized him in the drive-thru. 

There is something painfully honest about Season 2. Not the football stuff. The human stuff. Cousins fighting for respect in a city that was already looking ahead. Living in Atlanta, married there, raising kids named after local legends – and still needing to show his NFL headshot to the barber.

By the end of the series, the tone shifts. He’s not fighting anymore. He’s accepting. But Kirk Cousins isn’t wired to be a backup. He’s not wired for revenge, either. What he wants – maybe for the first time in 14 seasons – is to be seen. And that might be the saddest part. In a city that was supposed to be home, he was just a placeholder with a $27.5M sticker. The kind of man who congratulates the rookie who just took his job and still doesn’t get recognized in Atlanta.