The Falcoholic
This is the burning question of all burning questions after a first round selection that left fans reeling.
It was the stunner of the first round, a pick destined to define the Atlanta Falcons in the coming years, and a big flag to plant for Terry Fontenot and Raheem Morris. The Michael Penix pick at No. 8 wasn’t just an audacious, potentially reckless use of premium draft capital designed to get the Falcons their future quarterback. It was a curveball thrown by a team that’s supposed to be contending in the here and now, one we all expected to take a top defender or maybe a high-end receiver to bolster a roster ready to roll in the NFC South.
Instead, the Falcons went and got Penix. The Washington quarterback is a player I like a lot, but I didn’t really dream that he’d the selection at No. 8 for this team, not with the talent available and the team’s needs. But this is something the Falcons promised us they’d do, add to the quarterback room and choose who they identified as the best player available, and they’ve done so.
Why? That’s the question hovering over the pick and the team’s immediate and long-term future. While we’re not able to give an answer that’s going to satisfy everyone—the Falcons would have to walk through their process and their timeline, something they’re not going to do in any detail—we can go off of what the Falcons have said and done to try to determine the why. Whether that why satisfies anyone or not is, of course, an open question of its own.
You can watch the post-draft pick press conference here, with all the rationale Morris and Fontenot provided, I’ll try to dive in and make some sense of the selection.
This should be obvious.
Dan Orlovsky at ESPN suggested the Falcons had Penix as the second-best quarterback in this class, which you can take aim at per your own preferences, but clearly underscores how highly the team thought of him. They like his arm, they like the way he carries himself, and they think he’s a damn good quarterback who can be better in the NFL with time and care.
The team sending a contingent out to Washington to see Penix throw and coming away impressed from the front office down to quarterbacks coach T.J. Yates appeared to seal the deal here, and no matter what anyone tells you, there probably wasn’t some last minute reversal by general manager or owner that landed Penix in Atlanta. The Falcons brass signaled repeatedly in the run-up to the draft that they liked Penix and were considering a quarterback early, but I don’t think any of us took it seriously because...well, because it seemed nuts. Yet here we are.
There are plenty of holes to poke in Penix’s game, especially his not-always-pinpoint accuracy and lack of quality work over the middle of the field, and his age and...
