Last Saturday, nine months after he suffered a partially torn ACL, Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. received clearance to participate in team drills in practice. Penix will not play in the Falcons’ preseason finale in Miami on Friday, but the left-hander said Wednesday he will be mentally and physically ready to start Week 1 if he wins the job (via Josh Kendall of The Athletic).
[RELATED: Reviewing Falcons’ Offseason]
A limited offseason and summer could have eliminated Penix from the Falcons’ QB competition. Instead, because free agent pickup Tua Tagovailoa has not played well enough to secure the role, Penix remains in the race. The Falcons’ unofficial depth chart lists Tagovailoa OR Penix as their starter. Either way, there will be a southpaw at the helm when the Falcons open their season against the Steelers on Sept. 13.
Tagovailoa will get the nod this week against the Dolphins, with whom he had his share of ups and downs over the first six years of his career. The former fifth overall pick led the NFL in passer rating in 2022, and he earned a Pro Bowl selection and threw for a league-high 4,624 yards in ’23. The Dolphins made the playoffs in each of those seasons, but they and Tagovailoa crashed to earth from 2024-25.
Tagovailoa tossed a league-worst 15 interceptions over his first 14 games last season, leading then-head coach Mike McDaniel to bench him in favor of rookie seventh-rounder Quinn Ewers for the rest of the year. On the heels of a 7-10 finish, the Dolphins fired McDaniel and launched a full-fledged rebuild under the rookie general manager-head coach tandem of Jon-Eric Sullivan and Jeff Hafley. They got rid of several high-priced veterans, including Tagovailoa, even though releasing the 28-year-old left them with a record $99.2MM cap hit.
With Miami on the hook for the money remaining in the $212.4MM extension Tagovailoa signed in 2024, Atlanta was able to land him for the veteran minimum to replace the released Kirk Cousins. Maybe Tagovailoa will hold off Penix for starting duties and revive his career. Otherwise, if Penix ends up at the controls, the Falcons might finally found out what they have in the oft-injured 2024 first-round pick. That would give them a better idea of whether to exercise his fifth-year option next offseason.
Even though the Falcons signed Cousins to a four-year, $180MM pact in free agency a month and a half earlier, former GM Terry Fontenot drafted Penix eighth overall. Cousins started for most of the season, but after a mediocre few months, then-HC Raheem Morris benched him for Penix ahead of Week 16. The Falcons were 7-7 and in the playoff mix then. They finished 1-2 under Penix, who was on the wrong end of two overtime losses, and missed the postseason.
Penix remained the Falcons’ starter last year, but he put together nine mostly underwhelming performances before he suffered his knee injury. The Falcons fell to 3-7 in a loss to the Panthers the day he went down for the year. The club rode out the season with Cousins and finished 8-9, but it was not enough for a playoff berth in the weak NFC South. After the Falcons extended their playoff drought to eight years, owner Arthur Blank fired Fontenot and Morris. He brought in franchise icon Matt Ryan as president of football. Ryan hired Ian Cunningham as GM and Kevin Stefanski as head coach.
The Falcons’ new regime still has not identified a starter, making them the last team without one as the season approaches. The Vikings (Kyler Murray over J.J. McCarthy) and Browns (Deshaun Watson over Shedeur Sanders) made their choices earlier this month.