{"id":774498,"date":"2026-02-25T03:14:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T03:14:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/774498\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T03:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T03:14:23","slug":"is-michael-penix-jr-the-falcons-long-term-answer-at-qb-this-nfl-insider-isnt-sure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/774498\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Michael Penix Jr. the Falcons\u2019 long-term answer at QB? This NFL Insider isn\u2019t sure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Michael Penix Jr. the Falcons\u2019 long-term answer at QB? This NFL Insider isn\u2019t sure<\/a> appeared first on ClutchPoints<\/a>. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After an up-and-down 2025 season that resulted in another playoff absence<\/a> and the firing of head coach Raheem Morris<\/a>, the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> hope they have the winner ricipe to get back to Super Bowl contention with Kevin Stefanski calling plays and franchise legend Matt Ryan in the front office.<\/p>\n

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On paper, that seems like a pretty good combo, but is their incumbent starting quarterback, Michael Penix Jr., the kind of player who really brings it all together? Or will he instead get everyone chopped like the famous cooking show?<\/p>\n

While opinions on that matter are mixed, ESPN\u2019s Louis Riddick falls more on the pessimistic side of the cupboard, noting that he believes the Falcons will go in another direction before everything is said and done<\/a> at quarterback.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, personally, I don\u2019t. Look, I understand looking like you nailed it. Look, obviously, Kevin\u2019s trying to kind of buy himself some time. He\u2019s saying, \u2018Hey, look, we\u2019ll work through that. He\u2019s just trying to get healthy. We\u2019re just going through our process.\u2019 Whatever other buzzword that you want to use. The fact of the matter is, though, they don\u2019t have anybody healthy and\/or on their roster under contract that they could line up right now and play and play a regular season game with and win a game,\u201d Riddick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, I understand that it\u2019s we\u2019re still in February and we\u2019re just about to start the new league year, but we\u2019re talking about the most important position on the roster and we\u2019re talking about the guy who\u2019s coming back having a long extensive injury history and we\u2019re talking about a whole new regime here and we\u2019re talking about a guy who\u2019s running the personnel department and Matt Ryan who is a Hall of Fame caliber quarterback. He\u2019s not going to go into the season with these kind of questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

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So how would Riddick attack the QB position? Well, he believes there are options, including the top quarterback in the free agent market, Malik Willis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they are going to be in the market for a veteran signal caller. I think they\u2019re obviously going to look at the draft and see if they could find some kind of value there,\u201d Riddick said. \u201cBut you\u2019re going to tell me like a guy like Malik Willis wouldn\u2019t make sense in Kevin Stefanski\u2019s offense, concerning the offense that he\u2019s just coming from in Green Bay and the carryover that he carry over. It would have in Atlanta. Matt Ryan is going to make a big move here because he knows how important the position is.\u201d<\/p>\n

After taking $35 million in dead money<\/a> against the cap by releasing Kirk Cousins<\/a>, would the Falcons really consider outbidding opposing teams for Willis, who could command a deal worth $35.5 million annually<\/a>, according to Spotrac? It\u2019s hard to say, but if Ryan and Stefanski feel a similar way to Riddick, the next few months could prove very interesting for fans in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Related: Ranking 5 best Kirk Cousins free agency destinations once he\u2019s released by Falcons<\/a><\/p>\n

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Related: What Falcons GM Ian Cunningham said about James Pearce Jr.\u2019s domestic violence arrest<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is Michael Penix Jr. the Falcons\u2019 long-term answer at QB? This NFL Insider isn\u2019t sure appeared first on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,2554,12,224,7,8591,294,3239,4097,2859,18665,1879,6,1257,2663],"class_list":["post-774498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-falcons","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-atlantafalcons","tag-espn","tag-falcons","tag-football","tag-kevin-stefanski","tag-kirk-cousins","tag-louis-riddick","tag-malik-willis","tag-matt-ryan","tag-michael-penix","tag-michael-penix-jr","tag-nfl","tag-quarterback","tag-raheem-morris"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116129094978801899","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}