00:00In all honesty, when I saw the news that Tua was named the starting quarterback
00:04for game number one in Pittsburgh coming up on Sunday,
00:07right here on your home for Falcons football, Sports Radio 92.9 The Game,
00:11I was disappointed because I really wanted the Falcons to go as long as they could this week.
00:19Keep Pittsburgh guessing.
00:20Who's it going to be?
00:21Is it going to be Tua?
00:23Is it going to be Penix?
00:26Could it be Cooper Rush or Jack Strand?
00:29They're all in play here, right?
00:31Like, let's keep them guessing.
00:36Nah.
00:37Let's get to it.
00:38Maybe we'll try and hide the news on Labor Day Monday when no one's paying attention.
00:44Of course, that wasn't the case as head coach Kevin Stefanski made that announcement earlier today
00:51that it's Tua Tungavailoa as the starting quarterback against the Steelers and Aaron Rodgers.
00:59Look, that's not the surprise.
01:01I think, for the most part, at least for me, not a surprise.
01:06I've spent the last several hours listening to Mr. Frickey,
01:09and there are some things I agree with him with,
01:11and there are some things that I disagree with him vociferously.
01:15Okay?
01:17I've always felt like, for the Falcons, as currently constituted, that Tua made more sense than Penix.
01:26I know Tua's on the one-year contract.
01:29I know that Penix has more than one year, and he is supposedly the quarterback of the future for the
01:34Atlanta Falcons,
01:35whether you like that or not, and then, of course, the whole thing that happened on day one of training
01:42camp
01:42when Tua wasn't out there because he had a tweak back and Penix wasn't cleared
01:47and Trevor Simeon got cut and Cooper Rush was coming in,
01:52and lo and behold, who's that out there taking snaps on one day of Falcons training camp?
01:57Mr. Jack Strand.
01:59So that was the message to you right there, that don't expect the normal, don't expect the ordinary,
02:08don't expect what you're expecting.
02:10Expect the unexpected.
02:11And that's kind of what we got through the preseason.
02:14We never saw Michael Penix.
02:16Not once.
02:17Heck, he wasn't cleared for 11 on 11 until, what, a little more than a week ago.
02:23I am not surprised, for that very reason, that he's inactive.
02:29He's not ready.
02:30These other guys are ready, all three of them.
02:33They've actually played in preseason games.
02:36They've taken the majority of the snaps with this team.
02:40Tua has done that.
02:41Jack Strand has done that.
02:43Cooper Rush has done that.
02:44Michael Penix has not.
02:46And yes, Michael Penix is coming off of an injury.
02:49We all understand that.
02:51So, yeah, you want to be cautious.
02:54You've got money invested in him.
02:56You've got more invested in him than you do Tua.
02:59Okay?
03:00But, and it's a rather large but and a caveat to all of it, is that this management team
03:08for the Atlanta Falcons ain't the old management team that drafted Michael Penix
03:14after they had signed Kirk Cousins to that $100-plus million contract.
03:19There are different people running the show now.
03:23And one of them happens to be the former quarterback, the greatest quarterback in franchise history,
03:32Matt Ryan.
03:32So, we're first still learning about how Matt operates now as a manager off the field as
03:41opposed to an all-pro soon-to-be Hall of Fame quarterback, and he will be, and how the
03:48operation goes under head coach Kevin Stefanski and your general manager in Ian Cunningham.
03:54Those are really still a lot of unknowns, even though they've been on board for eight-plus
04:01months.
04:03So, that's part of it that's, you know, the uncertainty of it all.
04:09And then there's also Michael Penix himself.
04:14I'm not going to say that Michael Penix isn't tough-minded, but I am going to say that Michael
04:21Penix is a little bit soft.
04:22I mean, that's just the impression I get from him as someone when he speaks to the media.
04:29He is soft-spoken.
04:30He is soft-tempered.
04:33There's nothing about speaking to Michael Penix that when you do, you feel like, oh, this
04:39guy, man, boy, I wouldn't want to have to have crossed words with him, because that's
04:45not the case.
04:46Michael Penix is a good kid.
04:48And, you know, look, while he may not be my choice, I'm rooting for him.
04:52I'm rooting for all these guys.
04:54Whoever it is that's going to end up being the starting quarterback for the Falcons, and
04:58we know it's Tua right now against the Steelers to start the season, I want him to do as best
05:04as possible.
05:06I don't want him to lose the starting quarterback job, and it has nothing to do with Tua or
05:11the other three guys.
05:12I want him to be successful so that the Falcons, and I don't want him to get injured so the
05:17Falcons don't have to make a quarterback change.
05:20That's what you normally want when a season starts and you know who your quarterback is.
05:25So we know who the quarterback is.
05:28It's Tua Tunga-Vailoa.
05:29Whether you like it or not, that's the guy that's going to be taking snaps to start the
05:34season.
05:34Doesn't mean it's going to be the guy who's going to finish taking the snaps when the season's
05:38over.
05:39Doesn't mean he's going to be the guy taking the snaps the following week when you come
05:44home to play Carolina in the home opener on September 20th.
05:48Doesn't mean that he's going to be taking the snaps when you're in Madrid against the
05:52Bengals on November 8th.
05:55Okay?
05:57That's the nature of the NFL.
05:58So let's just focus on what's at hand that Sunday, this Sunday, this coming Sunday.
06:06We're less than a week away.
06:08If you're not excited just about that, then I think you're looking at the wrong things.
06:15Okay?
06:15No one ever said the Falcons have an all-pro quarterback ready to start taking snaps from
06:20day one here in Atlanta.
06:22We knew that coming in.
06:24We knew the situation.
06:26We knew that this might be a one-season, hold-it-down type of deal, and let's see who's available
06:33in the draft next year.
06:35Especially if we don't do well and we have one of the higher picks.
06:38This is going to be a deep, deep, deep draft for quarterbacks.
06:42If you spent this past Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and maybe tonight too, you will have
06:47seen a plethora of young quarterbacks whose names are going to be bandied about in the
06:53NFL draft, if not this coming year, 2027 draft, then certainly the 2028 draft.
07:01But the Falcons look at 2027, as they should.
07:05Now, we don't know why Michael Penix Jr. isn't active.
07:11We didn't get that from Kevin Stefanski.
07:14We know that he was cleared to play.
07:17Or at least cleared to go on 11-on-11s, I guess that's different than being cleared
07:22to play.
07:23Because Michael Penix is inactive.
07:26Tua is the starter.
07:27Cooper Rush is the backup.
07:29And I guess Jack Strand is the emergency third stringer.
07:32What I want to know is, what's the difference between being cleared to play and being able
07:37to play?
07:38I mean, that's got to be, is that up to the player?
07:41Up to the coach?
07:42Up to both?
07:43Including the medical staff?
07:45What's involved with that?
07:47We're not really certain about how and why this decision was made.
07:52Not to start Tua, but to have Michael Penix Jr. inactive.
07:58I mean, if you're cleared, shouldn't you be ready, willing, and able to play?
08:03At least that's what I would expect or want from my quarterback.
08:07So if that's not the case, and if Penix begged out, we need to know why.
08:11And I'm not saying he did, and it doesn't seem like any of us know why he did, but if
08:17he did, that backs up my assertion that he's soft mentally.
08:22I heard Joe Patrick talking earlier to John Fricke, and I thought he made a great point.
08:28He brought up Penix in that podcast that Cam Newton did where he talked about Michael Penix
08:35and was talking to Michael Penix, and he said, you should not go out there until you're ready
08:41to go out there and play your best.
08:43Michael Penix Jr. listening to Cam Newton?
08:47Did the Falcons management say, all right, you ready to go?
08:52And Michael Penix said no?
08:54Did they tell him he's going to be the backup to Tua, and he said, no, I'm not ready to
08:57be the backup?
08:59Don't know the answers to these things yet.
09:02Would be nice to have heard Kevin Stefanski give a couple answers to that, but look, he's
09:06going to play it close to the vest, and we know that's the case, and that's the way it
09:10is, and that's the way it's always going to be.
09:13But I'm curious, just as everybody else is curious, as to the reason why he's inactive.
09:20More than anything else, more than Tua starting, more than Cooper Rush being the second string
09:25and Strand, the emergency third stringer.
09:27All right, so we've got that on the board.
09:32404-726-0929.
09:35That's our phone number.
09:36I'd love to hear from you people on what you think about this.
09:39Do you think, off of what I'm thinking, agree or disagree, Michael Penix is somewhat soft,
09:48very soft, not soft at all, but being cautious?
09:53I think that's a viable question to ask.
