The Truth About Michael Penix Jr!

when it came to Michael pck specifically and not getting him out there to have any live reps today I'm curious what else went into that process we've seen enough last week of Michael pennick and the live stuff we give him a bunch of live stuff out there in practice you know we feel really good where we're at with Michael we feel really good we're at with the other guys that we set and we treated that the same way but Mike showed us last week enough that we don't have to play him in the preseason Michael penx Jr being selected eighth overall was probably the biggest headline of this NFL off season the pick just really made the Falcons office seem entirely dysfunctional with no clear plan not because penx isn't worthy of a top 10 pick we'll find that out once we see him in a regular season game but because the move makes no sense following signing kurk cousins in March signing cousins a veteran quarterback that you're comfortable giving a $100 million of guaranteed money to signaled that the Falcons were in win now mode so why wouldn't you use the eighth overall pick on someone to upgrade your team right now wide receiver romad dun was sitting right there for them to take no defensive players had been taken yet so you had your pick of the litter there but no they went for quarterback the one position they seemingly had already addressed this off season the Falcons tried to justify signing penx Jr by saying well we don't plan to ever be picking this high again but here's the thing if you need to move up to get a quarterback in the future you can there's there's nothing to stop you from doing that the 49ers traded all the way up to the third overall pick in 2021 to get Trey Lance the Chiefs moved all the way from the 27th overall pick all the way to the 10th pick to go get Patrick Mahomes in 2017 so it's not like you're locked into whatever pick your record earns you and don't get me wrong I definitely get the logic of drafting a quarterback and having them sit behind a veteran for a year both the quarterbacks I just mentioned Trey Lance and Patrick Mahomes did exact that for the Falcons if the plan was to sit pennx Jr for a year why the hell would you sign Kurt Cousins to a big contract why not sign a cheaper Bridge quarterback like Joe flacko Garner muu Sam darnold all of whom were available held Drew lock even that would have cost you a lot less money that you could have spent addressing other positions on the team but okay fine let's think this through for a moment so your plan is for Michael penx Jr to develop and learn behind Kurt Cousins why the hell isn't he getting all the preseason snaps you can get him what's going on here because if the plan is to develop him this is when you can do it this is when he can get consequence-free NFL reps something isn't adding up about what the Falcons are doing here there's something really fishy about this sequence of events for the Falcons either they are extremely dysfunctional with no clear plan on how they plan to develop penex or they're hiding something so the conspiracy theorist in me starts connecting the dots here's what we know Kurt Cousins is coming off of a torn Achilles the Falcons made a seemingly irrationally high draft pick especially if Kirk is healthy the Falcons are being overly cautious with Michael penx Jr just days after JJ McCarthy suffered a season-ending injury as Kevin Bacon once famously said those are the facts of the case and they are indisputable so I've come up with two possibilities of why this would make sense possibility number one Kurt Cousins isn't a sure thing for week one his Achilles isn't fully healed and the Falcons are worried he won't be ready in that case they don't want to risk Michael penx Jr getting hurt because if cousins isn't available and penx isn't available well then they're stuck starting Taylor hinei and we all remember how the hinei Ritter season went last year possibility number two and this one is more likely in my opinion the Falcons didn't realize how good penx was until after they signed Kirk Cousins after signing cousins they started scouting quarterbacks that were going to be in this draft because they were probably thinking like if somebody Falls to us in the second round or if we have a chance to trade back into the first round for a guy that falls and we're willing to do it let's at least know what these quarterbacks are so that we know if if we want to make that move for them or not then they watch penx Jr's film and fell in love why they didn't do this before signing Kirk Cousins God only knows why they didn't watch him as he led the Huskies all the way to the national championship game no idea but for some reason the Falcons took way too long to evaluate panx and once they did they decided they had to have him now here's where the JJ McCarthy piece comes in and why I mentioned him earlier what I've gathered from Kevin OK connell's press conferences is that the Vikings had a plan to Slow Roll McCarthy into the season they had a plan that if Sam darnold got off to a slow start or if darnold was even just mediocre at some point this year they were going to put JJ McCarthy in now that McCarthy's out for the year that plan goes out the window can't do that it's Sam darnold all year if the Falcons had a similar plan for Michael pennx Jr and then they watched as JJ McCarthy just took a season ending injury that would explain why suddenly they go you know what we're not going to risk penx junr getting hurt because our plan is that if Kirk gets off to a slow start if Kirk isn't fully ready or if Kirk is just mediocre and we need excellent quarterback play we're going to put Penning junr in at some point this year here's the most likely explanation overall because as most are conspiracy theories are significantly less likely than the simplest explanation the simplest explanation is usually the right explanation and the simplest explanation is Falcons don't have a plan they don't really know what they're doing they're shooting from the hip making it up as they go They're a mess and the Terry fona Raheem Morris regime is looking like it might be over sooner rather than later [Music]