On a masterful night, Kirk Cousins and the Falcons look like the real deal

Ever the dad, Kirk Cousins made sure to give his caveats. The Falcons can’t get complacent after their wild 36-30 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Thursday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

It was important, he said, for players to return Monday after the weekend off with the same urgency that they called upon to pull off this win.

“There’s so much football ahead, you’re going to enjoy these two, three days and then get right back to work and keep your foot on the gas, because when you let up, it can hurt you,” he said.

But that said, throwing for a franchise-record 509 yards on 42-of-58 passing yards and four touchdowns and the succession of spirals spinning tightly out of his right hand that homed in on their targets through the tightest of windows, as well as his explanation of his performance afterward, Cousins gave assurance to Falcons fans that it’s O.K. to believe in this team. Put aside the unevenness that you saw in the first four weeks. The fifth game, which lifted the team to 3-2, was the genuine deal.

“I feel like there was a drive in the second quarter when I threw a couple passes where I was basically anticipating where Kyle (Pitts) was going to be or where Drake (London) was going to be,” Cousins said. “I was ahead of it a little bit in a good way and threw decisively. I just haven’t been that decisive the first few weeks. I’ve been trying to kind of ensure that that’s where they’re going and ensure that that’s what I’m seeing before I let it rip. I felt (Thursday night), there was a little bit more now after four games, ‘No, I know where they’re going. I know where they’re going to be.’”

Mercedes-Benz Stadium has staged more than its share of shootouts in its brief existence. Thursday night’s will take its place among the top. Sixty-six points, four lead changes, two gigantic stops by the Falcons defense in the final three minutes of regulation to give the offense a chance to force overtime with the team down 30-27, one more Younghoe Koo clutch bomb (this one after missing two field-goal tries earlier in the night) and, finally, wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge’s 45-yard catch-and-run touchdown to chase the Buccaneers back to Florida.

“This is the moment of my life,” said Hodge, a grinder who has had to fight to keep his spot in the NFL. “I’m not going to even downplay it.”

Sure, Cousins is right. The Falcons could get fat and happy and backslide. You could also posit that it was just one of those weird Thursday night outcomes. But, after giving Falcons fans a taste of what he could do in leading the game-winning drive in Philadelphia, Cousins gave a more compelling full-game argument that the guy Falcons fans saw Thursday night is the real deal, not the one they watched with varying levels of anxiety in the first four weeks, when he averaged a modest 216 passing yards per game.

Regarding the anticipation he felt with his targets, “That’s what I was used to having when you play with guys for three, four, five, six years, and I can feel it starting to come,” Cousins said.

As anyone familiar with the Falcons knows, surrendering your time, lungs and particularly your heart to this team is a proposition fraught with peril. But the way Cousins directed the offense against a Buccaneers defense that started the game fourth in the NFL in opposition passer rating looked a lot like something worth diving into.

He completed passes to seven different targets, five for 66 yards or more. The tight end Pitts, whose role in the offense to this point was a major question mark, finished with seven catches for 88 yards – arguably his most productive game since his rookie year when he was paired with Matt Ryan and made the Pro Bowl.

Moreover, Cousins did it on a night when offensive coordinator Zac Robinson – speaking of members of the organization whom the fan base was starting to wonder about – piled the game plan on his quarterback’s shoulders. Through four games an offense with a 42/58 run/pass ratio, the Falcons tilted to 22/78.

“We knew that they were going to try to stop the run, so we had to dish it out in the pass game,” running back Bijan Robinson said. “Obviously, we did that very well.”

And the Falcons also pulled it off on a night when the defense – which had been the stronger unit of the two to this point – was off its game, giving up three touchdowns and three field goals in Tampa’s first seven possessions (not counting a kneel-down to end the first half). You would have to think that side will be better over the long term than it was Thursday. And the Falcons still only gave up 333 yards and, most importantly, delivered a fumble recovery (forced by safety Jessie Bates III) and a three-and-out after, respectively, Koo’s try to tie the game was blocked and Cousins made his big mistake of the night, an interception on a gotta-have-it fourth-and-15 deep in the Falcons end just inside the two-minute warning. The latter opened the door for a Cousins-led drive to force overtime with a Koo field goal as time expired. With new life, Cousins and Hodge ended it on the fourth play of overtime.

The offensive exuberance proved a most appropriate tribute to Falcons legend Matt Ryan, who became the 14th member of the organization to be inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor.

Introduced by Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez, Ryan hit all the right notes, thanking by name owner Arthur Blank, former general manager Thomas Dimitroff, coaches Mike Smith and Dan Quinn, teammates Tony Gonzalez, Todd McClure, Roddy White and Julio Jones, wife Sarah and sons Johnny, Marshall and Cal, along with coaches, teammates, support staff, his family and, finally, Falcons fans.

He spoke of Atlanta becoming his home and his motivation to perform for the team’s fans.

“I want you to know that it was the thrill of a lifetime to be your quarterback,” he said.

He finished in 123 seconds, one final two-minute drill, flawlessly executed.

After the game, as players charged through the tunnel toward their locker room, London yelled out a question to no one in particular: “You like that?”

It was a tribute to a famous Cousins moment, when he shouted similarly after leading a dramatic comeback win for Washington in 2015.

On a wild night at MBS, the answer for Falcons fans was simple.

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