At quarterback, the Falcons might go from cooked to cooking. In the midst of a race for the NFC South title, with three games left, Atlanta finally acknowledged that rookie Michael Penix Jr. offers a better chance to win than the quarterback the team gave $100 million in guaranteed money last March, Kirk Cousins. And frankly, the Falcons can't get worse at quarterback.
Before his benching, Cousins had one touchdown and nine interceptions from Week 10 to Week 15. During that span, Atlanta was 26th in EPA per dropback in non-garbage-time scenarios.
With Falcons fans breathing a collective sigh of relief, what exactly are they getting with Penix?
The first and most glaring difference between these quarterbacks is centered around traits -- Penix has a significantly stronger arm than Cousins. Penix can routinely drive the football to all levels of the field, a skill that was never Cousins' strength and had all but vanished during the 2024 season.
And Penix loves stretching defenses vertically with his live arm. His average depth of target (aDOT) was over 10 yards in each of his final five seasons in college, from starter in Indiana to Washington. Cousins has never had aDOT higher than 9.4 in the NFL, and it was 8.0 this year after Week 15.
In my scouting gradebook on Penix before the draft, I wrote the following:
"Never afraid to give his WR a chance, and demonstrated flashes of incredible downfield placement ... he's mostly surgical when kept clean. Wants to sling from the pocket and loves driving the ball on passes outside the numbers. Has plenty of arm strength to make the long throw from the far hash."
Of course, some of Penix's productivity was thanks to the scheme at Washington and the talented receivers he had at his disposal -- all three of his top weapons were selected in the first three rounds of the 2024 NFL Draft.
Before a down, injury-plagued season in 2021 at Indiana, Penix had 28 touchdowns to just eight interceptions in his first two years in Bloomington for the Hoosiers. He's long been a prolific pocket passer with an aggressive style. While there may be occasional misfires deep, Penix will consistently push the envelope in the vertical passing game.
Like Cousins, Penix is not much of an improviser, although he'll give the Falcons a semblance of escapability. Although he ran a reported 4.58 at the University of Washington Pro Day with a 36.5-inch vertical -- both spectacular figures for a quarterback -- Penix never played to that level of explosiveness as a creator with the Huskies.
While Cousins had been one of the league's least-effective quarterbacks under pressure of late, Penix did have some struggles in that area at Washington because of his relative lack of sheer improvisational skill. However, clean-pocket play is most predictive of future quarterback success, and how efficient he performed when kept clean in 2024 is probably the main reason he was a top-10 pick.
Cousins had completed 71.9% of his throws at 8.0 yards per attempt with 13 touchdowns to six interceptions when not pressured in the pocket this season for the Falcons. While comparing the NFL to the Pac-12 isn't apples to apples, Penix excelled in 2023 with a 73.5% completion rate, 9.2 yards per attempt, and 30 touchdowns to six interceptions when kept clean. And Cousins had only been pressured on 32.6% of his dropbacks to date, the 11th-lowest rate among 41 qualifying quarterbacks.
I summarized my report on Penix before the draft with this:
"Some clear limitations to his game but some clubs will love his aggression and pinpoint strikes down the field."
By going to Penix, the Falcons have added an assertive element to their passing offense with a quarterback who has the requisite physical talent to connect on challenging throws at the intermediate level and downfield with much more regularity than the veteran he's replacing.
