Can the Falcons keep two starting QBs happy? Inside their path to Penix — and why the rest of the NFL is watching
Credit to Author: Jeremy Fowler and Marc Raimondi| Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2024 08:09:38 EST
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — As members of the Atlanta Falcons organization arrived at the team facility for Day 1 of the 2024 NFL draft April 25, a few things had become clear to one team source who was present in the draft room that night.
The coaching staff, beginning with first-year leader Raheem Morris, had fallen in love with Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. That was evident from the way coaches presented Penix in personnel meetings — a quarterback with maturity, football instincts and arm strength.
Some members of the scouting staff, which Morris inherited when he was hired Jan. 25, didn’t share that same level of love for Penix — but they did like him. Those scouts liked UCLA pass rusher Laiatu Latu “a lot” as a potential option with the No. 8 overall pick, according to the source.
The Falcons’ personnel department had scouted quarterbacks with heightened urgency in recent years, a product of the team’s instability at the position since Matt Ryan’s departure in early 2022. That didn’t necessarily change when the team signed free agent Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million deal in March. But like most NFL observers, Atlanta’s scouts believed the Cousins move mitigated the need to address quarterback early in the draft.
“[The Falcons] were one of the last teams I thought would take a quarterback in the first round,” an NFC executive said. “They just gave Cousins $100 million in guarantees.”
Instead, a pass rusher such as Latu could fill a gap for a team seeking to graduate from a rebuilding phase to contention. NFL scouts generally saw the Falcons as a team already constructed to score points on offense, with gaps to fill on defense.
Whatever the realities, an unusual air of suspense hung over Flowery Branch. Typically, scouts have an idea at this stage of the draft process — or at least a short list of possibilities — for who the first-round pick might be. That wasn’t the case for all of Atlanta’s scouts — even those who were aware of the affection for Penix.
As the team submitted the pick that made Penix a Falcon, those who did know what would happen — general manager Terry Fontenot, Morris and owner Arthur Blank — seemed to celebrate the hardest. Others were processing the shock.
“I don’t think anybody in the personnel department knew what was coming,” a team source said. “The feeling was like, ‘All right, OK, here we go.’ There wasn’t the normal eruption in the room that you usually would have with a more predictable pick.”
A front office source told ESPN that the notion the Penix pick was a surprise “is simply not the case,” and that many people knew going into the day of Atlanta’s intention to draft him.
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One who did not: Cousins, whose camp was stunned the team had drafted a first-round quarterback.
“That never came up as even a remote possibility” in Atlanta’s talks with Cousins before the draft, a source with direct knowledge of the veteran’s free agency process said.
Three-and-a-half months later, the biggest question of draft night — why the Falcons selected their quarterback of the future in Penix when they’d already committed sizable dollars and their near future to Cousins — now gives way to the next scene in this drama. How will Penix’s presence impact Cousins, and vice versa? When will the inevitable Penix era arrive? And how does Morris plan to handle the situation with the eyes of the NFL world — including those inside the locker room he inherited — fixed upon him?
To arrive at those answers requires an understanding of how the Falcons got here, and why the prevailing logic, which said the team couldn’t possibly carry a high-priced free agent and a first-round phenom at the same position, failed to hold.
“That’s the importance of the position,” Morris said. “Let’s just be flat-out honest. It’s high value, high importance. You can win without it, but it’s tough. It’s hard. It’s hard living.”
FIVE WEEKS BEFORE the Falcons selected Penix, there had been a different quarterback celebration. The team had secured a top-15 passer for the first time since Ryan was at his peak, a period roughly coinciding with the team’s last postseason appearance in 2017. Cousins, fresh off signing a four-year, $180 million deal with Atlanta, was in town and on brand, with a power red tie to balance out a gray suit, ready for the news conference camera flickers.
“As we talked to Atlanta, it felt like this was a place where, if I play at the level I expect to play, I can retire a Falcon,” the 35-year-old Cousins said at his introductory news conference. “And that was something that really excited me, and that’s certainly the goal.”
Rarely do Pro Bowl quarterbacks become available in free agency. Cousins has parlayed that reality into a sea of guaranteed money.
Cousins entered this offseason with career earnings of $231 million, largely guaranteed, numbers typically reserved for surefire Hall of Fame passers. He navigates rare space first occupied when he was a young player — not quite good enough to get a mega-extension from Washington, but much better than the alternatives for desperate teams in free agency, like when the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings bid for his services in 2018. Instead of taking long-term deals, Cousins decided early to bet on himself with a series of shorter-term contracts — two franchise tags with Washington, followed by three-, two- and one-year deals with Minnesota totaling $185 million, mostly, if not all, guaranteed.
Few players have benefited more at the negotiating table.
But by the end of Cousins’ sixth year in Minnesota, when his season ended prematurely with a torn right Achilles, both sides had hit a point of stagnation. The Vikings had won a respectable 53 games during Cousins’ tenure but never broke through as a major contender. That, coupled with a salary cap crunch, prompted Minnesota to think younger at the position. The Vikings were still willing to sign Cousins but not at the price point of Atlanta’s offer — $90 million guaranteed at signing, locking him into at least two seasons, along with a $10 million roster bonus that guarantees by the fifth day of the 2025 league year.
Cousins knew he had a good situation in Minnesota, and to leave required a sizable commitment from Atlanta. A deal that would solidify him as the starter beyond the 2024 season was important to him, sources close to him say.
Helping Cousins’ leverage was Atlanta’s full-court press to sign him. The Falcons had the likes of Baker Mayfield or Justin Fields as alternatives, but Cousins was the priority entering the legal tampering period March 11. (The NFL later found that the Falcons were premature in their pursuit, docking them a draft pick after an investigation into their signings of Cousins, wide receiver Darnell Mooney and tight end Charlie Woerner.)
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Morris had his own history with Cousins to lean on, as the two worked in Washington together from 2012 to 2014, when Morris was the defensive backs coach there. Morris had admired Cousins since that time and valued his decision-making, accuracy and character. Morris is big on getting good people in the building, and Cousins fit that bill. A deal was struck.
While in town for his introductory news conference, Cousins visited with Morris and others inside the Falcons facility. In casual meetings that proved informative, Atlanta stressed that it had addressed its three big needs in three days — quarterback, “X” receiver (Mooney) and “Y” tight end (Woerner).
Now it was time to fix the defense, a source with knowledge of the meeting said of the overall message that followed.
The group also discussed the overall health of the quarterback room and how to improve it. The source said the prevailing sense coming out of the trip was that Atlanta might take a developmental quarterback on Day 2 or 3 of the draft, but not a first-rounder.
Atlanta pursued Cousins, after all, to help it win a division open for the taking.
On draft night, the script had flipped. Cousins was set to enjoy a peaceful night in the Atlanta suburbs when he received a call from Flowery Branch. On the other line was his new offensive coordinator, Zac Robinson. The Falcons were prepping the move that would shock the NFL draft, and Robinson was giving his new quarterback a heads-up.
Cousins — who had just returned from a Falcons draft party at Mercedes-Benz Stadium that evening — was surprised, but he is also a 12-year veteran who understands that teams do what they believe is best, those close to him say.
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As a former fourth-round pick who replaced first-round star Robert Griffin III in Washington, he understands teams will seek to improve however necessary. That’s why he has fought for contracts with high guarantees all of these years — and why he’s protected for at least the next two seasons, whether Penix plays or not.
On draft night, he took the professional approach, texting Penix congratulations.
The Falcons did some level of damage control after the pick as well. On Day 2, a high-ranking Falcons official called Cousins’ agent, Mike McCartney, to explain the thinking that the team needed two quarterbacks.
Cousins got the desire for a long-term strategy at the position. But the Falcons’ post-draft reality begged a key question: Would he have signed in Atlanta had he known that it would seriously consider taking a quarterback at No. 8?
That’s something Cousins either doesn’t want to answer or simply can’t. Asked a variation of that in an offseason news conference, Cousins responded, “I don’t really deal with hypotheticals.”
While a source close to Cousins said he did not feel misled by Atlanta, which had to do significant draft legwork on prospects over the five weeks between free agency and the draft, an alternative would have garnered more consideration: a one-year deal back to Minnesota, which could have proceeded with its own draft plan at quarterback, J.J. McCarthy in the first round, while staying competitive with Cousins as the likely signal-caller for one more year.
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As he spoke to Robinson on draft night, it was too late for Cousins to consider that possibility.
Cousins was asked in May on “The Jim Rome Show” why he signed with the Falcons, and he again said he was intrigued by the idea of being able to retire with the team. This time, though, there was an addendum. Cousins said he felt that way “at the time.”
On the “Pure Athlete” podcast in June, Cousins described the Falcons taking a quarterback as coming “out of nowhere.”
“I was reminded again, Proverbs 3, 5 and 6 — I’m going to trust the Lord and he’ll lead,” Cousins said. “And it doesn’t mean that it’s going to go necessarily the way I and my flesh want to go, but I’m going to trust him and let him lead. He hasn’t failed me yet.”
THE FALCONS ALREADY planned to improve the quarterback position when they first interviewed Morris for the head-coaching job in January, per front office sources. While Morris conveyed in interviews his belief that Atlanta could improve the position via free agency and the draft, the Falcons were already in selling mode at quarterback. Privately, Morris had acknowledged the Atlanta job was open largely because the quarterback situation was poor. That was no secret. Everyone in the Falcons building knew the position had to be addressed, and that Cousins was high on the wish list.
“[The Falcons] made clear they would do what’s necessary,” a source involved in Morris’ hiring process said. That plan included trading last year’s starter, Desmond Ridder, to Arizona for wide receiver Rondale Moore.
Leading up to March, Morris had done advance scouting on the quarterbacks in the draft because he wanted an answer to this question: “What if we don’t get Kirk?” By the time the Falcons actually signed Cousins, the team knew “exactly how we liked the quarterbacks [in the draft] and how they fit us,” Morris said.
But Morris understood that the difference between stacking quarterbacks in a draft room and actually taking one at No. 8 overall is significant. He said the Falcons’ comprehensive evaluation at the position did not come with a predetermined outcome.
“We kind of jumped the draft a little early … without having any expectations of what could happen or how it lined up,” Morris said.
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Morris’ scouting report on Penix, coincidentally, dated back years. Morris said his father, Kenny Vaughn, scouts high school players in the Tampa, Florida, area and had long known about Penix, a former Tampa Bay Tech star. While Morris won’t go as far as comparing Penix to Matthew Stafford, with whom he worked with the Rams, he makes clear he believes Penix will be “in the upper half of the National Football League just as a thrower” very early in his career.
“Certainly [Penix] has some ability in his arm of some of those top-level guys,” Falcons OC Robinson said. “He still has a long way to go in terms of playing up to those kinds of guys’ level. But he certainly has those traits in terms of what he has in his arm, his instincts and overall vision.”
With those initial beliefs about Penix in hand, Atlanta requested workouts with several of the top quarterbacks. The Penix workout April 5 was noteworthy for the attention the team paid to it: Top brass and at least five assistant coaches packed into a private jet, landed in Seattle, watched Penix throw for two hours, then left.
Heavy Seattle rain presented challenges. One observer said Penix can “spin the life out of the ball” and throws an ideal deep ball but “also missed throws a top-10 pick shouldn’t miss” in the intermediate range, 20 yards and under. Morris, who helped run the workout — even playing linebacker at one point — assured Penix on bad plays, telling him that everybody misses throws.
“They [the Falcons’ staff] wanted it to be a good workout,” the observer said.
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More than what it saw on the field, the team said Penix’s makeup came out throughout the process.
“Watching him work out, seeing him with his guys, watching the guy compete and bring Washington to [the title game were selling points],” Morris said. “Seeing the guys who came and worked out for him [in his Atlanta workout] and who he knew he would call. Just how he communicated to us on the phone, the simple things, ‘What it’s going to be, what do you need us to do?’ He asked us what we wanted, no question. Great dude all the way around. Fit our ethos. Fits everything we’re about.”
But there was still the presence of Cousins to consider, and how Penix could fit into the team’s direction. In talking with several sources, these themes emerged as to why Atlanta decided to shock the draft with the Penix pick.
Atlanta considered multiple scenarios in Round 1, including the selection of Latu, whom the Falcons tried to trade back into the first round to select after the Penix pick.
The Falcons expected to be good, meaning they wouldn’t have additional chances in the immediate future to select in the top 10, where the top quarterbacks tend to be available.
The next few quarterback classes are considered weaker, believed in some league circles to be a factor in explaining why six QBs went in the top 12 selections of this year’s draft. One team source countered this possibility by pointing out that franchises don’t always plan that far ahead and saying that might not have been a major factor for Atlanta.
The Green Bay Packers model — drafting top quarterbacks while accomplished starters still have productive years left — was a factor for some inside the building.
Atlanta might be able to get a “badass” pass rusher in the back half of the first round next year, a league source with knowledge of the Falcons’ process said. Morris was perceived as having done more with less for the Rams’ young defense in 2023 and could look to follow a similar model in 2024, a team source noted.
Cousins’ recovery from a torn Achilles heightens the urgency for a succession plan. While he’s trending upward in his recovery, he turns 36 later this month and must overcome serious injury.
Also, significantly, Blank was receptive to the idea of taking a passer high. One source with knowledge of the Falcons’ offseason quarterback planning believed Blank was a key factor in the decision. A separate team source countered that notion, saying Morris and Fontenot simply kept Blank abreast of the plans and that the owner trusts his football people.
Blank said at a news conference last week, in his first comments about the draft, that he was made aware the team would take Penix as the pick got closer and was in favor of it because of the need for a succession plan at quarterback. Blank noted Cousins’ age. The owner, who had quarterback stability over two decades with Michael Vick and Ryan and saw firsthand the team’s failings without that consistency, said he’s “very sensitive” about not having a franchise quarterback to replace Cousins. He compared quarterback limbo to “being in a spin cycle of a washing machine and not being able to get out.”
One AFC executive told ESPN in the days leading up to the draft that he believed the Falcons were very high on Penix, that the connection was “something to watch out for.”
But other scouts and executives wondered whether that was typical subterfuge or a possible leverage play by Atlanta for trade purposes, inflating Penix’s value. Las Vegas and Seattle were among the teams linked to Penix, perhaps even more strongly than Atlanta. Whenever the Penix decision was actually made, the Falcons have since made it clear they were prepared for all scenarios.
“You don’t know who you’re going to get in the draft. You can’t predict that,” Morris said when asked why the team invested heavy capital in Cousins if it was contemplating drafting a quarterback high. Morris also spoke to the idea that Atlanta could have traded down and still drafted Penix.
“That’s easy to say, ‘Hey, we want Penix, we’re going to wait for Penix.’ … There are people sitting around waiting for all these guys. All these guys are great candidates. They all went in the top 12 picks.”
To be sure, Penix was not the reach many draft observers immediately perceived him to be. In the weeks leading up to the draft, multiple sources predicted he would go in the top half of the first round. “The mock drafters were off on him,” an AFC scout said.
THERE IS NO quarterback competition in Atlanta this season. Morris said during OTAs that the onus is on Penix to learn from Cousins. The veteran has taken all of the first-team reps early in training camp, though he said Morris told him he will not play at all in preseason games as he continues to recover from the torn right Achilles that ended his 2023 early.
Cousins has been impressive with those practice reps. He went 29-for-32 passing over his first two days in camp and used all his playmakers, finding eight different receivers for completions on his first real practice of the summer. Penix has looked good leading the second team, with several eye-popping plays showing off his arm, albeit with less consistency than Cousins.
Off the field, Cousins and Penix share a suite in the training camp dorms, along with tight end Kyle Pitts and fellow quarterback Taylor Heinicke. Penix said last week that he hadn’t gotten any real one-on-one time yet with Cousins, but was constantly with him in the quarterback room and the suite. Pitts said the two even go to bed at the same time, earlier than almost everyone else at about 9:30 p.m.
“He’s so smart,” Penix said of Cousins. “Just continue to learn from him and continue to just watch what he [does] day-in and day-out, how he carries himself and how he leads the offense.”
Morris said it wasn’t his call to have Cousins and Penix together and that Brandon Ruth, the Falcons’ senior director of operations, was in charge of room assignments. But the coach is certainly not opposed to having them together.
“It’d be good to have anybody on the team with Kirk,” Morris said. “I mean, you’re talking about the ultimate pro. But when you’re talking about your quarterback, your heir apparent, for sure [Penix is] certainly going to get a lot of stuff off of him.”
The Falcons are Cousins’ team in 2024, barring injury, but the question is how long will that hold?
One veteran league scout noted that it’s hard to believe Penix would sit for the two years that align with Cousins’ contract guarantees. Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love sat for two seasons behind Aaron Rodgers before becoming the starter, but Rodgers was a 16-year veteran of the team when it drafted Love at age 21. Cousins has been in Atlanta for five months. Penix is 24.
“Ideally, you’d like for [Penix to be the backup longer],” the scout said. “I don’t think that will happen. With a few exceptions, that’s just not the trend in the NFL.”
Falcons quarterback coach T.J. Yates is among those who insist they have seen “toxic” situations before in the league and this is not one of them.
“These guys are professionals,” Yates said. “And they understand the situation, like outside this building, outside these walls, people can paint whatever picture they want, but it’s not like that at all.”
The rest of the league will be watching how the Falcons’ transition strategy works out, as well.
“When do you transition to another quarterback? When he can’t win,” Morris said. “You never want to put a number of years on him, you just know what the contracts say. You know Kirk’s guaranteed two years, whatever it is, $90-plus million with the extra stuff that’s guaranteed in the third. Penix has a five-year contract [including his fifth-year option].
“All of those years don’t matter to us. It was about making sure we had a long-term quarterback in place so you never have to go through quarterback purgatory for, hopefully, as long as I’m here.”