Tua Tagovailoa vs. Michael Penix Jr.: Where do Falcons quarterbacks excel and struggle, and who will start?

After signing former Miami Dolphins starter Tua Tagovailoa to a free agent contract this week, the Atlanta Falcons will have him compete with incumbent starter Michael Penix Jr. throughout the offseason for the right to take the first snaps under center, with general manager Ian Cunningham stating that the team won't name a starter at the moment.

"We're not in the business of really handing out starting positions in February, and in March, the same," Cunningham said. "For Tua, coming in here, he knows he's coming in to compete, just like Michael knows that he's coming in to compete."

Tagovailoa is coming off arguably the worst season of his career, one in which he was benched down the stretch by the Miami Dolphins in favor of rookie Quinn Ewers. Penix, meanwhile, is coming off an up-and-down season during which he also suffered a partially torn ACL and missed the final month-and-a-half of the season. 

With the competition ahead, we thought it would be a good idea to take a look at what each quarterback brings to the table, in both a positive and negative sense. Because while both quarterbacks are left-handed passers, they could arguably not be more different. 

Tagovailoa's strength is his accuracy. He has completed 68% of his career passes, and in 2024 he led the NFL with a 72.9% completion rate. What he lacks is arm strength, as he's long been unable to push the ball down the field and instead relied on the Dolphins' scheme and skill-position players to create a significant share of their yards after the catch.

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Penix is almost exactly the opposite. In his short time in the NFL, he's completed only 59.6% of his passes, attacking the intermediate and deep areas of the field most often and allowing his playmakers to snag the ball at the catch point rather than creating their yards after the catch.

We can see in their pass distribution the disparate skill sets they bring to the table.

That's especially true on the vertical plane. Tagovailoa mostly throws short passes. According to TruMedia, 54.7% of his passes last season were thrown within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, with 22.5% of them actually being thrown behind the line. Penix, by comparison, threw just 44.2% of his passes within 5 yards and only 17% of them behind the line. 

Penix instead attacked the intermediate area of the field (6-20 yards) with 45.6% of his passes, while Tagovailoa did so only 37.5% of the time. Penix also threw deep down the field more often, which is unsurprising given the difference in arm strength between the two quarterbacks. None of these 2025 figures from Tagovailoa was out of line with what he's done for the remainder of his career.

There's also a difference in the way they attack the field horizontally. 

Tagovailoa mostly throws over the middle, while Penix mostly attacks the wide sides of the field, and he does so in a way that is more evenly distributed than Tagovailoa. Over 50% of Tua's passes in 2025 targeted the middle of the field, per TruMedia, while that figure was just 38.5% for Penix. 

Penix, meanwhile, also had a more even distribution of passes to the left and right than did Tagovailoa. There was only a 4% split between his passes to the left and right, while Tagovailoa had an 8% split. Tua previously had a more narrow left-right split in his career, but as his arm strength has waned he has leaned more heavily on throwing toward his strong side rather than trying to test the opposite side of the field.

So who will start Week 1?

The decision on which player to start ultimately comes down to one of weighing limitations of different types. 

Tagovailoa, with his ability and willingness to throw over the middle of the field, seems like the better fit for new head coach Kevin Stefanski's offense than does Penix, but his lack of ability to push the ball down the field also places constraints on an offense. Penix, meanwhile, opens things up for the offense to attack and push for explosive plays, but his extensive injury history makes depending on him complicated and his relative inaccuracy also places its own constraints on an offense.

Because Penix probably won't be in position to participate in the entire offseason program, Tagovailoa probably has an early leg up in the competition for reps under center. It will be up to Penix to close the gap in training camp, if he's healthy enough by the time camp rolls around. But the Falcons will also probably give him a long leash to do so; it's far better for them if their first-round pick lives up to the promise they saw in him and becomes the long-term starter, than it is if Tagovailoa takes the reins for a year and they have to decide whether to pay him or else dip into the draft or free agency again to find their next answer under center. 

For that reason, and because it seems likely that neither one will play at a level that makes it obvious they are the clear-cut best option, I would expect that both players make starts at different points during the season, and that the Falcons enter the 2027 offseason with as much uncertainty under center as they did in 2026.