I made it through the entirety of Sunday\u2019s shutout loss to the Carolina Panthers solely because I get paid a salary of real American dollars to do so. If you tapped out early, I cannot blame you. After a truly awful outing from Michael Penix, he was benched and Kirk Cousins took over.<\/p>\n
The game was well out of hand at that point \u2014 Cousins subbed in at quarterback after Penix threw interception No. 2 late in the third quarter, a mistake the Panthers offense turned into yet another score, extending the lead to 27-0. It doesn\u2019t make sense to leave your starter in there for a variety of reasons \u2014 the risk of injury, and the likelihood that continuing to play badly would damage his confidence are two of them.<\/p>\n
Kirk didn\u2019t really do anything special, either, and that makes sense, too. There\u2019s no reason to try to air it out and, again, risk injuries in a game they were going to lose anyway. He dinked and dunked seven passes for five receptions and 29 yards.<\/p>\n
After the game, unsurprisingly, Falcons head coach Raheem Morris was asked if Cousins would have a chance to compete for the starting job this week.<\/p>\n
I know a lot of folks are going to absolutely hate his answer, and I get it. It\u2019s Morris\u2019 job to field the most competitive team he can, and of course making sure you\u2019ve got the best option behind center is key to that. But there are some other factors to consider here.<\/p>\n
Penix finished the game having completed 18 of 36 passes for 172 yards, zero touchdowns, and two picks despite being sacked zero times, and the box score really doesn\u2019t convey just how out of it he looked. I\u2019ve talked up his poise time and time again, and I did not see it today. But no matter how today went, he\u2019s still the player who did everything he could to try drag the Falcons to a win (that didn\u2019t happen) in Week 1\u2019s loss to the Bucs. While he wasn\u2019t great against the Vikings in last week\u2019s 22-6 Sunday Night Football win, he did exactly what the Falcons needed him to do: enough.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s really no indication that Penix lacks the mental toughness to bounce back from this. But one thing that might change that would be opening up the starting quarterback competition three weeks into the season. With a young quarterback, you\u2019ve got to leave room for growing pains. Nobody expected him to come out here and immediately have an MVP-caliber season, and this is just one game.<\/p>\n
Penix is also the guy who spent the whole offseason preparing to be the starter. Just like Penix had a learning curve last season after Cousins spent the offseason preparing to start, I think things would be shaky for Kirk, at least early on, for the same reason.<\/p>\n
And while his performance was bad enough that I\u2019m not at all willing to point to this as an excuse \u2014 I am curious how the malfunctioning headset impacted Penix today. Adjusting to operating off of sideline hand signals or only hearing partial play calls on the road against an NFC South rival is a perfect storm of terrible circumstances for any quarterback, and especially one with six NFL starts to his name. Penix did say after the game that the headset functioned better as the game went on<\/a>, but this game got out of hand very early on, so I do wonder how much of an impact it had. But again, it does not excuse the caliber of play today.<\/p>\n For his part, Penix wanted to stay in the game.<\/p>\n But pulling him was the right call, and while I wouldn\u2019t have been upset if Morris had opened up the starting quarterback competition and let Cousins have a shot, it would be wildly reactionary to do that to a young quarterback three games into his first season as a starter because of one terrible game.<\/p>\n