The Falcons sit in a precarious position with Michael Penix Jr. and Kirk Cousins under contract, with no obvious landing spot for Cousins in a trade. It’s a difficult pill to swallow, but it seems like Atlanta is going to keep the veteran on the roster.
Hindsight is 20/20, but with the way Cousins played last season down the stretch and with this year’s crop of quarterbacks, it does seem like Terry Fontenot and the Falcons made the correct decision to get ahead of the curve and draft their franchise quarterback, right?
Nick Baumgardner of The Athletic doesn’t think so. In his re-draft of the 2024 cycle, the Falcons don’t select Penix. But it isn’t because Penix got drafted before Atlanta’s 8th pick. The Falcons end up with Brian Thomas Jr. instead of Penix.
“The Penix-Kirk Cousins situation remains one of the strangest things we’ve seen in a minute, and Penix hardly lit the world ablaze during his three starts. The jury’s still out, of course, but it’s hard to ignore the Pro Bowl year Thomas had in Jacksonville. The Daniels-Nabers-Thomas combination at LSU could be talked about in the same way as the Joe Burrow-Justin Jefferson-Ja’Marr Chase triumvirate.”
Brian Thomas Jr. is already a top 10 wideout in football, but this idea that Penix didn’t show his chops in three games is crazy. The box score doesn’t tell the full story. His defense and head coach hung him out to dry.
Twice, the Falcons lost in overtime, in which Penix didn’t get to touch the ball. Before the overtime game against the Commanders, Raheem Morris screwed the pooch with his clock management. Penix was about the only reason the Falcons even had a chance against Washington and Carolina.
It seems like he’ll be the franchise quarterback the Falcons have been searching for since Matt Ryan. That doesn’t mean the process last season wasn’t insanely dumb because it was, but it worked out for Terry Fontenot.
However, perhaps Baumgardner is under the impression that the second half of Kirk Cousins’ 2024 was due to the shoulder injury. In that scenario, I could understand the Falcons drafting Brian Thomas Jr. instead of Penix, but it certainly doesn’t seem like the veteran has a lot of tread left on his tires.
