Falcons Bury Week 2 Quarterback Disaster by Deactivating Both Cooper Rush and Jack Strand
Marc Raimondi reported the official inactive list, confirming Rush and Strand are out.
The just dropped their Week 3 inactive list, and it reads less like a standard roster update and more like a crime scene cleanup. According to beat reporter Marc Raimondi, quarterbacks Cooper Rush and Jack Strand are both officially in street clothes for Thursday night.
If you watched play football last Sunday, you already know why. The Falcons are handing the keys back to Michael Penix Jr. against the , completely burying the guys who engineered last week's offensive disaster.
For context, Rush started Week 2 against the and managed to throw two interceptions on just 17 attempts before getting yanked. That paved the way for Strand, an undrafted rookie out of Division II Minnesota State-Moorhead, to step in and immediately throw a pick-six on his first career NFL pass.
The two quarterbacks combined to lead the to exactly three points in a 34-3 blowout loss. Benching both your starter and your backup from the previous week is the NFL equivalent of throwing out the entire Tupperware container because you are too scared to see what is growing inside.
Anyone looking at the betting markets for Thursday Night Football has to factor in this total hard reset. The are rolling with Penix under center, and the guys who actively sabotaged the offense four days ago are not even allowed to put on helmets.
The rest of the inactive list includes defensive backs Malcolm DeWalt IV and Robert Longerbeam, defensive end Samson Ebukam, and offensive lineman Ethan Onianwa. But the real story is the complete eradication of the Week 2 quarterback room.
Penix now gets a primetime stage against the Packers to prove he can stabilize this offense. If he struggles or tweaks anything, has completely removed its usual emergency ripcords, meaning things could somehow get even weirder.