So far, so good. A new era of Atlanta Falcons football was ushered in on Sunday when the eighth overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Michael Penix Jr., made his first career start at quarterback in place of the benched Kirk Cousins, who Atlanta will likely cut after the season.
The Falcons were able to beat the lowly Giants in Penix’s first start, keeping their playoff hopes alive with an encouraging start for the rookie. Atlanta was able to open up the playbook a bit en route to a 34-7 win, which at least bodes well for the future.
Head coach Raheem Morris called Penix “flawless” after the game and while that’s a stretch, Penix completed 18 of 27 passes for 202 yards and and interception that wasn’t his fault.
“I was ready for the moment,” Penix said. “I’ve been preparing each and every day for this. It was such a blessing. A great game. A great team game.”
On the first play of the game, the Falcons did something they were sparingly able to do during Cousins’ starts: run a play-action bootleg. Penix rolled out to his left and threw a dart to wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud along the sideline, even though McCloud dropped it. Penix was able to get the Falcons into field goal range on their first drive, but they missed the kick and had to get back to work on the rest of their drives.
Overall, it was the best the Falcons’ offense had performed in weeks, and Penix at least can get them doing some things they weren’t able to before.
Atlanta saw a big spike in play-action usage this week, with 22.6% of Atlanta’s passing plays coming with the use of play action. According to TruMedia, the Falcons hadn’t used play action on more than 15% of their dropbacks in any game this season.
That created some easier throws for Penix and allowed Bijan Robinson to have one of his best games of the season. Robinson rushed for 94 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries as the Falcons’ offense was able to cruise up and down the field.
“You want the run game to be as explosive as possible for a guy like Mike coming in,” Robinson said. “As we help him, he helps us the same way with his talent and with his ability to get the ball down field. You don’t have a lot of guys, eight in the box, nine in the box.”
The Falcons finished this game averaging 2.22 points per drive, a huge leap from the 1.37 they were averaging over the previous five games, leading to Cousins’ benching. The Falcons’ offense actually moved the ball at about the same rate in terms of success rate (48% for this game), but they were able to maximize their drives and actually score a few touchdowns. Penix was sharp, decisive, showed off his trademark arm strength and handled the few moments of adversity from the Giants well.
The defense had his back. Jessie Bates III and Matthew Judon each returned interceptions for touchdowns, which took some pressure off Penix.
“As a defense, we had a conversation. ‘Hey, we’ve got to be able to make plays and get off on third down, get turnovers, get short fields for Mike,'” Bates said. “I know he’s ready, but first start, being able to get him settled in, and I think our defense did that today.”
His one interception on the day came from a dropped pass from Kyle Pitts, but outside of that there was a stark absence of negative plays from Penix in his first start. He wasn’t sacked and rarely put the ball in harm’s way as he continued to fire down the field. Penix isn’t the most mobile quarterback in the world, but he is in a different class than where Cousins found himself post-Achilles injury. The Falcons don’t have a statue in the pocket anymore and, in theory, it’ll be harder for defenses to just tee off on their passing game with no help in sight.
There’s a caveat here for playing the Giants, but the Falcons’ offense did just get snuffed by the Maxx Crosby-less Raiders last week, so this is genuine improvement from the Dirty Birds. They can still potentially save their playoff hopes with wins over the Commanders and Panthers to close out their season. That would be an incredible start to the Penix era for the Falcons, but for now, just take everything one game at a time. The first glimpses were promising.
