“Dire Straits” – Rich Eisen on Falcons’ Outlook in Wake of Michael Penix Jr’s Season-Ending Surgery

when Michael Pennix Jr. got drafted by the Atlanta Falcons, everyone was um sitting right there at that draft saying, “Uh, what’s up with that?” Because Kirk Cousins just left Minnesota to be your starting quarterback and you just paid in gajillions of dollars and you went ahead and used a draft choice instead of to support this veteran quarterback in his final dotage years in the National Football League to try and go all in on that basket in the same way the Jets were doing with Aaron Rogers at the time, not knowing that the Steelers were going to do the same thing with Rogers in a couple years. But I get ahead of myself. We were all sitting there going, “What are the Falcons thinking by taking a quarterback at all, let alone one who is, you know, arguably coming into this draft that has since, as we’ve seen, put Dre May, Drake May into the ether, and we see what he’s doing now.” Jaden Daniels was the unicorn last year, and we see what Bo Knicks has become there. And we’re waiting for JJ McCarthy to still show up regularly like he did in Michigan, winning a national championship there. And Caleb Williams, my goodness gracious, now is a seven and three NFC North leading into week 12 quarterback. Yeah, finally finally looks like the number one overall pick. Um, but Pennix out of all of them was believed to be the most pro ready cuz he’s also, you know, uh what a a Brandon Weeden uh you know uh age little older. Okay. He’s 24 and he also boy does he have that gorgeous spiral like an NFL film spiral and a rocket arm but also a surgically repaired knee multiple times over having suffered not one not two not three but four season ending injuries in his college career where he was all over the map but that’s not his fault. It’s part and parcel of the way things are going in college football now. So, you’re drafting somebody that you a lot of people thought they didn’t need. And then they drafted somebody who availability wasn’t always his best ability. And sure enough, they needed him last year cuz Kirk Cousins started falling apart at the seams coming off of an Achilles injury of his own, right? And um they turned to Pedics. Save the season, kid. He couldn’t. He tried. Then he gets the starting job this year. And everyone’s wondering, “Are you gonna get rid of Kirk Cousins now?” And the answer was, “No, doesn’t matter how expensive he is. We may need him.” And we were all like wink wink. All right. That’s just uh you trying to cover the fact and cover some tracks of drafting Pennics and having a a a bad sighting and you’re definitely going to offload him at some point. Nobody knocked on the door to the to their liking with an offer. They held on to him. Pennocks missed one game with a bone bruise on the knee this year. Didn’t look great for Cousins in that game. Tua and the Dolphins started planting their feet and piouetting on their season. We’ll see how much more winning they can do. But here we are now on this week 12 Wednesday with the Atlanta Falcons having lost in overtime at home to the Carolina Panthers in a game where they not only lost Drake London with a knee injury but lost Penn with one two and we find out today season ending knee surgery for Michael Penn Jr. And it’s yet another ACL injury, partially torn, thank goodness. But this was the concern about him. And it’s not fair to bring up his injury history at this moment, except for the fact that the Falcons have a season on the line. And unbelievably, the person they’re turning to to save it is the guy they turned away from last year and turned to Pennix to save it. and Kirk Cousins who’s still there. And it’s a much bigger hole from which the Falcons are asking Cousins to dig out of rather than the one that Cousins handed to Penn last year. Dire straits for the Atlanta Falcons who are now looking up in the standings at a Carolina Panthers team that has already swept them this year for the first time since 2013. Atlanta three and seven. They’re not even in the sniffing it category when we show you the NFC standings here. And we’re very lenient on the sniffing it portion of we’re generous. Yeah, we’re generous when it comes to we expand we expand the circle to four five and one teams, but after that we got to turn our back on you. They’re not even they’re not even in the mix right now. And Atlanta’s next game is at New Orleans before they visit the Jets. And then they’re home for Seattle at Tampa on a Thursday night mid December. And even more damning, they do not own their first round pick next year. That belongs to the Rams because they traded back into it for more defensive pass rush help, which has been uh an improvement this year. An improvement this year. So, um it looks like the the Falcons are um in a position where they couldn’t even have imagined they’d be in right now or certainly they hoped they wouldn’t be in with panics not there because he hurt a knee that a lot of red flags were flying about. I mean, did we all have them in the playoffs this year or um did you choose them to win the division? I think I might have. I don’t think their offense is stacked and improved defense. It’s all right there. And by the way, Drake London might not play this week either. It looks like he’s not. Yep. Because of because of that aforementioned knee injury. Hey, you made it all the way to the end. Thanks for that. Check us out every single day streaming live on Disney Plus and the ESPN app 12 to 3 Eastern.

Rich Eisen reacts to the Atlanta Falcons announcing QB Michael Penix Jr. will miss the rest of the season with an ACL injury, giving Kirk Cousins the starting job back.

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45 comments

  1. No, this is why they kept kirk but you cant expect a team run by morris to win. Hes not a good head coach and their scouting department and gm have issues scouting qbs

  10. Four years of High School, 2-3 years of college coaching, multiple years as a professional athlete…. and he still throws wrong-handed! Maybe he's just not coachable?!? (Same scenario for MIA, and CLE).

  18. We need to trade bijan while his value is at an all time high. He can get at least 1 maybe 2 1sts or a 1st and high 2nds. The next gm needs to come from Philly since they know how to draft. Pitts can go as well, keep London but get him another star receiver. Absolutely fire McKay, Morris, and terry. They are all awful.

    Next coach needs to be someone who’s experienced. Maybe gruden or maybe Flores but I’d prefer to go offensive coach.

  32. If you watched the 2023 national championship game (and we all know Rich was all over that one), you saw what he could do against the closest thing to an NFL scheme defense he ever saw in college
    …and it wasn’t much.

    Even without the injury history (and it ABSOLUTELY fair to bring that up as it helps define his experience as a player leading up to draft day), Penix was not the right pick for the Falcons, especially with the garbage OL they’ve been fielding going back to Matt Ryan’s time.

  35. Penix finally had a quality game going when he was injured so that is a shame for him. He may have finally been on the rise. There should be no doubt that the Falcons just got significantly better. They have a couple of defenders coming back from injuries and they went from a well below average quarterback to someone who was the league's best quarterback in 2023 when he got hurt and was up to rated 7th in the MVP race when he was injured in 2024. That after delivering 6 consecutive solid Hall of Fame quality seasons with Washington and Minnesota despite mostly poor defenses and a bottom 5 offensive line.

    It is not likely that the Falcons season can be saved but perhaps the quarterback who, since he has been in the league, is the best in the 4th quarter, the best when throwing to tight ends and the best when running play action can pull it off with perhaps the best defense and offensive lines he has ever played with.

  36. Dump move by Fontenot i cannot believe he would pick a guy with 4 major injuries before age 22. I would not even think about much less go out and get him, he was not even the best qb. Fontenot and Blank and Mckay are the most horrible in the nfl, they are so bad! Sell it Blank

  41. Drafting panics two months after bringing in Kirk cousins was, to call it stupid is a compliment, to call it a swimming pool full of cold water on what was the warm fuzzy moment of cousins coming back to Atlanta, as he has family here.

    I’ve been a fan for 55 years. Over and over they make decisions that are counter to the wisdom of winning football. And the wisdom of playing to human nature.
    For someone who ran a gigantic corporation, the way, Mr. Blank has handled certain personnel issues is ghastly

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