Michael Penix Jr. makes his first start since tearing his ACL on Thursday night against Green Bay, and the box score that got him here doesn’t read like the ending of a real competition.
Cooper Rush went 56.4 percent for 229 yards across two starts and threw four interceptions in that stretch, a league high. Rush started at Pittsburgh on four days’ notice, then again at home against Carolina, where he got pulled in the second half. Atlanta scored 16 combined points across both starts and never reached the red zone.
Sixteen points across two games means the offense broke down completely, and it broke down while a healthy former first-round quarterback watched from the sideline. That’s the part that makes tonight bigger than a normal Week 3 change under center. Whatever Penix does against Green Bay on a short week gets read as the verdict on the decision to bench a healthy incumbent for a guy who hasn’t played a snap in ten months.
Penix was cleared for full practice back on August 22 and carried no injury designation into this week. That means the Falcons had a medically cleared, starting-caliber quarterback standing in street clothes for two losses that buried the season before it started. Being medically available and still holding a clipboard through Weeks 1 and 2 was a coaching call, not a medical one. Before the ACL tear, in his first full season as a starter, Penix put up a 60.1 percent completion rate, 1,982 yards, nine touchdowns, and three interceptions, a line the front office had every reason to trust before Rush ever threw a pass.
Tua Tagovailoa has an oblique injury and has returned to practice, which technically makes him a backup option. Nobody in Atlanta is thinking about Tua Tagovailoa tonight. The Falcons already told on themselves once this month by picking a healthy body over the guy with the higher ceiling, and tonight is the correction, not a coincidence. Kevin Stefanski’s staff has now made three different quarterback calls in three weeks, and only one of them ever looked inevitable.
Ian Rapoport had the framing right when the news broke.
https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/2102133502456004889
Splitting reps with the first team “last week,” in Rapoport’s words, is a polite way of saying Penix passed his own test before the medical staff needed to sign off on anything official. He decided he was ready. The organization just had to catch up to him.
I rewatched Rush’s fourth interception three times and I still don’t understand why nobody protected him from himself sooner.
None of that changes what’s being asked of Penix tonight: a short week, an Atlanta Falcons offense that hasn’t found the end zone in two full games, and a Packers defense with divisional pedigree that isn’t going to hand him an easy return. It’s brutal for a quarterback who hasn’t taken a live hit since last November.
Ten months in street clothes, and the season already needs saving.
