The Falcons have a lot riding on their signal caller.

After drafting QB Michael Penix Jr. in the first round in 2024 (to the shock of everyone, including myself) after signing QB Kirk Cousins, it looks like this is Penix Jr.’s team going forward. So much to the point that Cousins isn’t showing up to OTAs as he looks for a new place to earn starting minutes.

The Falcons’ hopes in the short and long term rely on Penix, who got the starting nod to finish the season. With potential extensions coming up for WR Drake London and other stalwart players on the roster, knowing what you got at QB is going to be huge for the Falcons in 2025.

So, what exactly do they have? Well if we look through all of Penix Jr.’s tape last season, there’s some promising stuff in there.

On the surface, Penix Jr.’s final rookie statline looks pretty pedestrian: 58.1% completion percentage, three touchdowns and three interceptions and one rushing touchdown, but his advanced stats look much better (largely because of the smaller sample size, but it works here). He finished tied for 10th in EPA per play among all QBs with at least 100 passing attempts, 17th in Success Rate and a 10.22 Average Depth of Target (aDOT) per Sumer Sports. According to Sports Information Solutions, he finished 14th in Boom Rate, plays that got over a 1 in EPA, but also finished with the lowest Bust Rate of all players with over 100 attempts. So he was able to mitigate catastrophic plays while also maximizing explosives. Pretty good, right? For a Falcons team that needed the explosives in the passing game after Cousins couldn’t throw the ball more than 15 yards downfield and the ability to mitigate pressure (Penix Jr’s sack rate when pressured was four points lower than Kirk Cousins), Penix Jr’s ability to get the ball downfield and work the sideline helped them finish weeks 16-18 seventh in EPA per play, compared to 14th from weeks 1-15. Let’s see where Penix Jr. helped this offense, and how far he can take them with some improvements.

Let’s start off with this: Penix has a really good understanding for cornerback leverage when targeting throws on the outside, and the requisite arm strength to fit these passes into small windows along the sideline. His wonky mechanics and release don’t really factor into throws he can step into and lace on the sideline, where he’s much more comfortable making one defender move. He made a handful of bonkers throws against the Panthers to end the season, but a couple really hammer home his comfort throwing to the edges of the field. This first one is a bench concept to his right, an out route by TE Kyle Pitts followed by a corner route by WR Drake London. Penix Jr. drops back and sees the corner in Cover 2 hammering down hard on Pitts’ out route, so without hesitation he rips this corner to London, who has the leverage on the safety to the outside.

The next one that really stood out to me was a couple plays later, where he laces a throw downfield to WR Ray-Ray McCloud vs Cover 3. Penix Jr is reading the leverage of the outside corner, who they want to bait in with a deep curl route as McCloud runs a big corner route. The minute the DB jumps on the curl and then hesitates, Penix Jr lets it rip, showcasing some nice velocity on this pass that floats right in over the shoulder. This is a sick ass throw, man.

I also think somewhere Penix Jr really stood out to me is in his diagnosing of pressure and having the proper responses to blitzes. After a myriad of injuries in his college career, Penix Jr isn’t exactly the most nimble guy, but he wins with his arm or with his mind when it comes to pressure. I was pleasantly surprised with Penix Jr’s responses to pressure coming so quickly. This is a small play, but against the Giants he was able to work against mugged and murky looks, finding answers up and down the field. On this one, he sees the nickel pressure and knows that if they’re bringing one from the field, they have to drop one to the boundary. As soon as the backside EDGE drops, London comes underneath for an easy chain mover.

Penix Jr’s ability to avoid disaster plays and create big ones from the pocket is really promising going forward for the Falcons. Even on his three interceptions, two of them were on dropped passes where it cleanly hit the receiver’s hands before doing the traditional Falcons thing of going directly to the other team. The fact that he’s able to do all of this and operate the offense to this extent has me excited for the ceiling of the offense.

Now, here comes me being a bit of a downer: while Penix Jr showed a lot of exciting tools last season, he still does have a ways to go before becoming a top tier QB (which is fine). One thing that stood out at the top was how big the drop was between his EPA per play and Success Rate. If EPA per play measures the explosiveness, Success Rate measures the routine, how often you can get first downs. Penix Jr dropping from 10th to 17th when we look at his EPA per play vs Success Rate caused me to raise my eyebrows a bit. Why this number drops? I have two theories, both can be fixable. The first one is simple: I think sometimes Penix Jr. goes for the fastball when an offspeed is necessary.

What that means is he has the arm strength to fire in passes along the sidelines like shown earlier, but when there’s need for more touch passes and feathered throws he tends to sail them high because he’s throwing it so damn hard. There’s been a bit of mechanical inconsistency with his passing in the upper and lower body that lead to some misplaced throws. He finished 2024 31st in SIS’ On-Target Rate metric, but I think ironing out some inconsistencies with his ball speed could help him out a lot. On passes like this one, where it’s a quick game target to London, Penix Jr just zips it outside trying to lead him away from the coverage. Part of this is just a young QB making his 4th start trying to build a rapport, but I also think some of the inaccuracies stem from trying to throw this 100 miles an hour. . After talking with my colleague and QB expert Mark Schofield, I think Penix Jr could probably clean up this area of his game by allowing his back leg to follow through, which helps with rotation.

This in-breaking route is also an example of needing a bit more touch on the pass, that Penix Jr. just dirts. It’s a nice decision and the receiver is open, but notice Penix Jr’s back leg kinda stop on the follow through, making him lose some of that rotational force, causing the ball to die early. Those small footwork things can make passes take big dips, and it’s something Penix Jr is going to need to improve in order to get to where the Falcons want him to be.

Another thing that caught my eye that limited his Success Rate last season: Penix Jr doesn’t really throw over the middle of the field. Again, limited sample size, but of Penix Jr’s 105 passing attempts, 44 of them came over the middle of the field, about 42%. Compare this to Cousins, who had about 53% of his passes target the middle of the field. This was somewhere Penix Jr also wasn’t super comfortable coming out of Washington, and when you see his Success Rate numbers, it makes sense. The throws along the sideline can be more explosive, yes, but these are naturally lower percentage throws. Not because the coverage out there is harder, but because you have to deal with the sidelines, the 12th defender. These lower percentage throws often get traded in for higher percentage passes over the middle of the field, but for Penix Jr, it’s flipped. This will hopefully improve with more reps, but I think where Penix Jr can improve in the middle of the field is with his timing. We’ve seen him throw middle of the field with some success in the NFL, but because windows move so quickly, he has to either work quicker or use his eyes to manipulate defenders better. There are two passes that might be the perfect example of this, the first one being a touchdown he threw against the Washington Commanders. It’s Cover 4, and Penix wants to work this bender to Pitts. From the end zone angle, watch his head look off the safety to that side, then whip right back and throw this missile for a TD. That’s big boy QB work over a region where he isn’t as comfortable.

Now, take this one against the Panthers. Different coverage, as the Panthers spin from 2-high into Cover 3 with weakside rotation down from the safety. You can see from the side angle that Penix Jr gets a little lax with his eyes, not making the safety move and forcing this throw to be super tight. Those things can be incompletions now, but with more tape they could lead to interceptions so Penix Jr is going to need more reps where he manipulates coverage over the middle of the field.

When I started watching Michael Penix Jr tape from his (albeit limited) reps during the regular season, I expected to see someone who had more limitations to his game than I found. What I found was a young QB who could thread needles on the outside, who has a couple more areas of growth that’ll help him take his game to the next level. The best thing Penix Jr has going for him is that I think the playcalling and playmakers being the same around him will help him grow. Offensive coordinator Zac Robinson is a rising star in the industry, and with help from stars like RB Bijan Robinson and a skilled receiving core, Penix Jr can take that leap.

The Falcons sure need him to.