Matt Johnson
The Atlanta Falcons brought in competition this offseason for quarterback Michael Penix Jr., as the former first-round pick recovers from the third ACL surgery since college. While NFL training camp will ultimately determine who is the Falcons starting quarterback in Week 1, there’s an early front-runner.
Josh Kendall of The Athletic wrote in a mailbag ahead of Falcons training camp that while he doesn’t know who will come out on top of Atlanta’s quarterback competition, right now he ultimately believes it will be Tua Tagovailoa out there against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In June, first-year Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski said that Penix still hadn’t been cleared for 11-on-11 drills for mandatory minicamp. That opened the door for Tagovailoa to take the reins of the offense, receiving a majority of the first-team reps and using those to start assimilating with offensive coordinator Tommy Rees’ offense ahead of training camp in July.
That in itself gives Tagovailoa an early edge in the Falcons’ quarterback competition entering training camp. It’s not the only factor working in his favor. The veteran quarterback boasts a superior resume to Penix, including leading the NFL in passer rating (2022), passing yards (2023) and completion rate (2024). Even in 2025, he still completed 67.7 percent of his passes with 20 passing touchdowns and averaged 6.9 yards per attempt.
Now compare that to his competition. Penix completed just 60.1 percent of his passes this past season and he’s only managed a 12-6 TD-INT ratio across 14 career regular-season games in two seasons with Atlanta. The development simply hasn’t come along as expected and now he is coming off an offseason that was dictated by rehabbing his knee injury.
That’s not to say we won’t see Penix on the field at all in 2026. He’s still under contract through the next two seasons, whereas Tagovailoa is on a one-year deal and the franchise has no allegiance to him since he wasn’t drafted by Atlanta. Realistically, as Kendall noted, both Tagovailoa and Penix will likely be starting games this fall.
Given Tagovailoa’s experience and his ability to play within the scheme and make accurate passes, he’s the best option right now for Stefanski and Rees. This will be a run-first offense anyway, centered around Bijan Robinson, and having Tagovailoa under center should also mean a higher rate of quick, underneath throws to the likes of Drake London and Kyle Pitts.
