FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Raheem Morris was cold and a little damp when he left the University of Washington on April 5, 2024. He was also convinced.
“I knew the moment I walked off that field,” the Atlanta Falcons head coach told The Athletic.
What he knew was that he wanted to make Michael Penix Jr. the Falcons’ quarterback of the future. What he also knew was that there were hurdles to be cleared.
Atlanta held the No. 8 pick in the NFL Draft that was still 20 days away. Morris was worried then, and for weeks after, that the New York Giants would take Penix with the No. 6 pick. The Falcons quietly had tried and failed to address that issue at the NFL combine by talking to teams in an attempt to trade up into the top five, according to team and league sources who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about the situation.
There was also the Kirk Cousins conundrum. Twenty-three days earlier, Atlanta had given Cousins the largest total free-agent deal in NFL history, guaranteeing the veteran quarterback at least $90 million as part of a four-year, $180 million deal.
So, the Falcons had work to do if they were going to make the pick that NFL Network host Rich Eisen later would call the biggest “industry-wide head-scratcher” in his two-plus decades of covering the draft.
On the plane ride home from the workout, all Morris and company wanted to talk about was Penix. With Caitlin Clark leading Iowa past UConn in the women’s Final Four on in the background of owner Arthur Blank’s private jet, they shared their impressions of the young QB.
“He walks around with a swagger,” Falcons quarterbacks coach Zac Robinson said. “You walk on the field and immediately you’re like, ‘That’s the guy.’ You knew he had the arm strength, but then you see it in person and it’s like, ‘Holy smokes,’ this is different than stuff we have ever seen.”
It was misting and around 50 degrees when the Falcons’ traveling contingent — which included Morris, Robinson, passing game coordinator T.J. Yates, general manager Terry Fontenot and assistant general manager Kyle Smith — made its way onto the field with Penix. They brought a bag of brand-new NFL footballs for Penix, which essentially meant he would be throwing a heavy, slick and oddly shaped marble.
“And he went out there and was darting throws left and right,” Yates said. “When we felt that in person and felt the spin of the ball … we came back on the plane after that, and we were all sitting there like, ‘This might be the guy.’”
Morris “played” some middle linebacker during Penix’s passing drills to clog up the quarterback’s lines of sight and to aggravate him a little bit.
Still, “I could hear the ball going over my head,” Morris said.
Fontenot’s reaction was one word — a naughty word that reflected the very positive impression Penix had made, according to one person on the plane. For Atlanta’s coaches, who had recently turned their attention to serious prospect evaluation ahead of the draft, Penix’s workout was revelatory.
Michael Penix Jr is just showing off with this throw.
Anticipation + Accuracy + Arm Talent = Long Term Success in NFL pic.twitter.com/Pz48VkidsP
— Chase Daniel (@ChaseDaniel) April 23, 2024
For Penix, it was kind of so-so. He left the session feeling like he could have done more.
“I did make one throw where I looked out of the corner of my eye and was like, ‘That’s what they wanted to see,’” he said. “It was a post route, but I threw it on a line. I didn’t put any air under it. They weren’t trying to show too much, but I saw a little bit of a reaction.”
Morris and Robinson, who both came to Atlanta from Los Angeles, could squint and see Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford. Like Stafford, Penix had an alien arm capable of making any throw and getting it there in a hurry. Like Stafford, Penix gave off a low-maintenance vibe. (When Fontenot called Penix’s agent, Reggie Johnson, to schedule a private workout, Johnson said, “When and where?” instead of trying to negotiate favorable conditions for his client.) And, like Stafford, Penix carried himself with a confidence that was quiet but had enough of a hard edge to survive the job.
For Fontenot and Smith, who had been evaluating the 2024 quarterbacks for more than a year, the workout was a confirmation of what they had believed for a while: Penix was a dude.
“The workout, that gets a lot of buzz, right?” Smith said. “It was a good workout, I’m not saying it wasn’t. But I feel like that was kind of the final piece of it.”
Smith could see that the coaches were beginning to get the same impression, particularly when they watched how Penix interacted with his Washington teammates who were participating in the workout.
“When you meet him, you find out how unbothered he is,” Smith said. “You kind of feel that.”
When Fontenot was hired by Atlanta in 2021, Smith was one of his first hires. Those Falcons had Matt Ryan at quarterback, but Fontenot and Smith came into the building looking to draft the quarterback of the future.
“We wanted to draft a quarterback since we got here,” Smith said.
The problem was they didn’t see any they loved that year — or in the two years after that. Then the 2024 draft came along, and like an episode of “Love Island” on the Falcons’ executive floor, a new infatuation seemed to spring up every day. There was Penix. There was Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye and even J.J. McCarthy and Bo Nix.
It looked like an oasis in a quarterback draft desert. The Falcons had already evaluated a 2025 quarterback class that would include Cam Ward, Jaxson Dart and Tyler Shough and decided no one interested them, a team source said. It looked like they had to find a guy now or wait at least another two seasons.
That’s why Fontenot and Smith went to the 2024 combine looking to deal. The Falcons had multiple trade discussions with the Washington Commanders, who held the No. 2 pick that year, a team source said. They also asked the New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals what it would take to get to No. 3 or 4, the source said. Three league sources confirmed that Atlanta was active at the combine in search of a deal before concluding the asking prices were too high.
Atlanta left the combine with no deal to move up, no hope of a deal to move up, and Taylor Heinicke, Desmond Ridder and Logan Woodside under contract at quarterback. That’s when the team turned its attention fully to Cousins, the prize of the 2024 free-agent class.
He signed on March 13, 2024, the first day of free agency. Cousins’ camp was told at the time that the Falcons would not be taking a quarterback in the first round of the draft, according to a league source.
When Cousins was introduced, Atlanta rolled out the red carpet. He talked about retiring as a Falcon and the fact that his in-laws lived right down the street. Rapper and unofficial city ambassador Quavo even gave him a new nickname: Kirk Frost.
It was a nice moment.
“A coach told me this when I was a young player in the league: When the owner, general manager, head coach and quarterback are on the same page, that’s when you really have a chance to go win a Super Bowl. And as I looked at the Atlanta Falcons, I believed strongly that the owner, general manager, head coach and quarterback can all be on the same page, and that’s exciting for me,” Cousins said at the time.
After signing a huge free-agent deal with the Falcons, Kirk Cousins wasn’t expecting to get competition in the QB room so soon. (Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)
Everyone thought the Falcons were out of the quarterback market. Then they flew to Washington for the Penix workout. When Atlanta’s coaches and executives got back to Georgia, they went back through their notes to be sure they really felt how they thought they felt.
“We kept going back and back to make sure,” Yates said. “Everybody knows the magnitude of the move and what it was going to mean, so we had to be pretty (convinced) on it. After exhausting the entire process, we were (convinced) about it.”
Then it was time to talk to Blank. It was his $90 million that Cousins was in the process of putting into his pocket. Fontenot, Morris and several other key executives met with the owner the week of the draft, a team source said. Blank maintains that he doesn’t interfere with the football decisions of his coaches and executives, but he also doesn’t “like surprises,” he has acknowledged.
It turns out Blank took no convincing. The owner was shaken by how poorly prepared Atlanta was at quarterback after trading Ryan and was willing to invest almost anything into making sure the transition from Cousins, whenever it came, was smoother, a team source said.
With Blank’s blessing, the only problem left was the one that originally worried Fontenot and Morris — that Penix would be picked before their selection at No. 8. In the Falcons’ building, the biggest concerns were the Giants taking Penix at No. 6 or the Minnesota Vikings (No. 11) or Las Vegas Raiders (No. 13) trading above them to grab him.
To dissuade other teams from trading up, the Falcons spread the word throughout the league that they were not taking a quarterback. A representative from the team specifically told Johnson, Penix’s agent and at least one NFC general manager during the week of the draft that they would not select a quarterback with their first pick, a team source said. In fact, fewer than half of the people on the executive floor of the Falcons’ offices knew they were planning to take the quarterback, two league sources said.
Then Atlanta waited.
As the first round of the draft approached on April 25, Morris remained worried about the Giants. There was a sigh of relief in the Falcons draft room when New York took Malik Nabers at No. 6. When the Tennessee Titans selected offensive tackle JC Latham with the seventh pick, Fontenot said simply, “Write the card.” Smith relayed Penix’s name to a Falcons employee, who typed “Michael Penix Jr.” into the NFL’s computer system.
The league’s internal system runs about three to four minutes ahead of the broadcast of the event, so many people around the league knew about Atlanta’s surprise pick almost immediately. That’s when word began to trickle out that Penix might be the pick for the Falcons, who had been closely linked to pass rushers such as UCLA’s Laiatu Latu and Alabama’s Dallas Turner.
“That would be a wild state of affairs if we’re about to hear the name Michael Penix Jr.,” Eisen said on NFL Network’s live broadcast.
“Are they really going to do this?” Daniel Jeremiah said as commissioner Roger Goodell walked to the podium.
They did, and they immediately became the talk of the draft.
“I didn’t see it coming,” ESPN analyst Mel Kiper said on his network’s broadcast, adding he, too, had heard the Raiders had been working on a trade to get ahead of Atlanta. “Who would have thought Atlanta would make this pick, though? I don’t think anybody did.”
Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts was on a live internet broadcast when the pick was made.
Kyle Pitts live reaction to the Falcons drafting Michael Penix Jr. 👀
Watch here: https://t.co/NHswLhR6K8 pic.twitter.com/2PheNRoyOV
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 26, 2024
“Oooh, hoo, hoo,” Pitts said, covering his mouth. “I’m very shocked. I’m not going to lie. I did think we were going defense, I’m not going to lie.”
Later in the week, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network likened the Falcons’ situation with Cousins to cheating on your wife during your honeymoon. Cousins was “shocked” by the move, a league source said. The Falcons said they were merely planning for the future and planned on Cousins being the quarterback of their present. Instead, the veteran was benched after Week 15 last season following a five-game stretch in which he threw nine interceptions and just one touchdown pass.
Both players remain on the team despite the fact that Cousins felt he was “misled” by the Falcons and informed Blank in March that he would like to be traded to a team where he can start.
“Obviously, I would love to play, but I’m not going to dwell on things that aren’t reality,” Cousins said when he reported for offseason workouts this summer. “That’s not the situation I am in, so it’s better to be focused on the situation I’m in and control what you can control. Certainly, there were conversations in January, February, March, even April, but we’re moving forward now.”
The Falcons would be willing to trade Cousins during the season, but their asking price is considered high by many around the league, according to a league source. Cousins has a no-trade clause and would only be willing to approve a deal to a small number of teams. The expectation is he’ll finish the season in Atlanta, a league source said.
For now, the 13-year veteran is being the consummate teammate, Morris said.
“To be a good football team, you have to be good at that position,” Fontenot said. “Right now, we love where we are at the position. We’re excited about Mike.”
Meanwhile, Penix opened the season with a 27-of-42, 298-yard, one-touchdown performance in a 23-20 loss to Tampa Bay. Sunday, he goes to Minnesota to face off with McCarthy, the quarterback the Vikings took two picks after he was selected.
“I’m going to make sure they know by the end of my career, this was the right choice,” Penix said.
(Top photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
