The Falcons Are Making the Right Call Benching Tua, But This Exposes Everything Wrong With Their Season

Let me be crystal clear about something right from the start. The Atlanta Falcons ruling out Tua Tagovailoa against Pittsburgh and turning to Cooper Rush is not just the correct decision. It is the ONLY decision. Any team that would risk an oblique injury by playing a backup quarterback in a meaningless game against one of the toughest defenses in football would deserve everything bad that happens to them for the next three years. So credit the Falcons for getting this one right. But getting one decision right does not absolve them of the complete disaster they have engineered this entire season.

Let's talk about the injury first because this is important. An oblique injury is not something you take lightly in football. Your obliques are core muscles that stabilize your entire midsection, and for a quarterback, they are absolutely critical to your ability to plant your feet, step into throws, and generate power. When a quarterback gets hit or needs to twist away from a pass rusher, that is when an oblique injury really shows itself. It gets worse. It does not get better by gutting it out against the Steelers defense. The Steelers bring T.J. Watt and Cam Heyward and a defensive unit that does not care if you are hurt. They will exploit it. They will attack your weakness. That is football. So keeping Tagovailoa out makes sense from an injury management standpoint. The Falcons are being smart here, and that is refreshing because they have been anything but smart in 2024.

Now let's look at the bigger picture. The Falcons are a bad football team right now, and that is not hyperbole. They came into this season with Super Bowl expectations after acquiring Kirk Cousins and building an offense that looked like it could compete. Instead, they have been a complete disappointment. They are spinning their wheels, losing games they should win, and their season is essentially over. When your season is in free fall like this, you do not risk your quarterback's health. You absolutely do not. Cooper Rush gets the start because it is the prudent thing to do, and honestly, the Falcons are not losing this game because of Cooper Rush. They are losing it because of everything else that has gone wrong.

Let me talk about what that everything else actually is. The Falcons have a legitimate talent problem on defense. They cannot stop anyone. The secondary is bad. The pass rush is inconsistent. They get pushed around by better football teams. When you are supposed to be a good team and you cannot defend the passing game at a high level, you are in trouble. Add that to the offensive inconsistency, and you have a recipe for disaster. Kirk Cousins has not lived up to the hype. He has thrown interceptions at critical moments. He has not elevated his teammates. The Falcons invested massive money in him, and he has been average at best. That is not on Tagovailoa. That is not on Rush. That is on the entire franchise making poor decisions about where to allocate resources.

The running back situation in Atlanta is also a mess. They have talented guys in the backfield, but they do not feature them enough. The offensive line has had issues. The coaching decisions have been questionable at best. All of this adds up to a team that looks disorganized and frankly, lost. They do not have an identity. They are not winning in any particular way. They are just losing in creative new ways every single week. So when you are in that kind of situation, the last thing you need is to have your starting quarterback get more injured trying to salvage a season that is already gone. That is exactly why benching Tagovailoa is the right call.

But here is where I want to push back on the narrative that is forming around this team. Some people are going to look at this decision and say the Falcons are being measured and cautious. That is true. They are. But I want to ask a larger question. How did a team with Kirk Cousins and this much offensive talent end up in a position where they are playing meaningless games in the second half of the season? How did a franchise that promised Falcons fans a championship run turn into a cautionary tale about mismanagement and poor roster construction? The answer is that the Falcons made a series of bad decisions. They overestimated their talent. They underestimated the competition in the NFC. They have not developed depth at critical positions. They have relied on aging veterans instead of building for the future. All of this caught up with them.

Now Cooper Rush is going to go out there and do what Cooper Rush does. He is going to be a competent backup who will probably not lose the game single handedly, but he also will not win it for Atlanta. He will be fine. He will manage the offense. He will avoid catastrophic mistakes. That is literally what you want from a backup quarterback in a game that does not matter. The Steelers will probably win because they are the better team, and they are playing for playoff seeding. That is just the way it goes. The Falcons will get another loss, and their nightmare season will continue its downward spiral.

What bothers me most about this situation is not the decision to bench Tagovailoa. That is fine. What bothers me is that the Falcons are in this position at all. They should not be playing meaningless games in December. They should not be worrying about managing injuries to prevent further setbacks. They should be fighting for a playoff spot or preparing for a run. Instead, they are in triage mode, trying to salvage what they can from a season that has been a complete disappointment. That is on the front office. That is on the coaching staff. That is on the organizational leadership that thought they could just throw money at Kirk Cousins and wake up as a playoff team.

The injury to Tagovailoa is also a symptom of something else that is wrong with this team. Why is the quarterback getting injured in practice? What kind of environment are the Falcons running where their starting quarterback suffers an oblique injury during practice? That speaks to either too much intensity in practice, poor technique, or bad luck. Any of those things is a red flag. Good organizations do not have their starting quarterbacks getting hurt in practice. They control the environment. They make sure that practice is competitive but safe. The Falcons apparently failed to do that here.

So yes, benching Tua Tagovailoa against Pittsburgh is the correct decision. Cooper Rush will start, and that is fine. He will be adequate, and that is all you can ask from a backup in this situation. But this entire scenario is just another example of how much the Falcons have underperformed in 2024. They came in with high expectations and they have delivered disappointment at every turn. The right call on this injury does not erase the wrong calls that got them here in the first place.

The Falcons need to use the rest of this season as a learning opportunity. They need to figure out what went wrong with Kirk Cousins. They need to rebuild their defense. They need to establish a true offensive identity. They need to make better decisions about personnel and playing time. None of that happens this year. They are done. But they can at least minimize the damage. They can at least keep their quarterback healthy. They can at least avoid making things worse. That is what this decision represents. It is not a sign that the Falcons are well run. It is the bare minimum of competence in a season full of incompetence.

VERDICT: The Falcons are making the right move with Tagovailoa, but it is the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This team is sinking because of poor roster construction and bad decisions at the top. One smart call does not fix a broken organization.