If Michael Penix Jr. Can Survive A Brawl For Atlanta Falcons, He Can Play In Exhibition Games

Forbes

2 days ago

To paraphrase William Shakespeare or maybe Vince Lombardi: To play or not to play Michael Penix Jr. during exhibition games. That is the $5.7 million (as in his salary this coming season) question for the Atlanta Falcons.
Their answer is no.
The right answer is yes.
Yes, the Falcons should play their 25-year-old quarterback during exhibition games since he'll begin next month in his first full year as a starter. And, yes, he needs game-day experience after taking only 24 snaps last season in exhibition games during his rookie year, and, yes, to worsen matters, he has just three NFL starts after he replaced the benched Kirk Cousins and his $180 million contract to close out the season.
According to Falcons head coach Raheem Morris, whose team signed Penix to a fully guaranteed contract worth $22.88 million over four years after he was the eighth pick overall in the 2024 NFL draft, Penix won't play Friday night at Mercedes-Benz Stadium against the Tennessee Titans.
Morris didn't say it, but you also know Penix won't play in the third and last exhibition game for the Falcons on August 22 at Dallas since starting quarterbacks don't do such a thing that close to the regular season.
The bottom line: Penix should have joined established NFL signal callers like Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Kyler Murray who took the field last weekend during the league's first set of 2025 exhibition games.
Instead, Penix keeps joining the rest of us in hearing Morris say over and over again, there is nothing to see here.
'Mike knows how to take a tackle. Mike knows how to get hit,' Morris told me Wednesday in Flowery Branch, Georgia, where his Falcons met the Tennessee Titans during a second day of joint workouts.
Morris added of his decision to keep Penix mostly in mothballs until the Falcons start playing for real, 'I'm good with that, and I don't need to see Michael until there is absolutely money on the line.'
But wait. In 2010, when Morris was the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he had another second-year NFL quarterback in Josh Freeman. Just like Penix, Freeman didn't start until later in his rookie season (OK, nine games to Penix's three), and as a sophomore in the league, Freeman rallied the Buccaneers from three victories the year before to 10.
Now get this: Morris played Freeman in the first two of four exhibition games during that 2010 season. And the difference between what Morris did then with Freeman compared to what he is doing now with Penix is, what?
'I gotta say I've learned a lot more since managing the quarterbacks since then, since my Josh Freeman days,' Morris told me. "That was back when everybody did everything the old-school way. You go out there and you had 9-on-7, you had 'bull in the ring,' you had all of those things. So for me, it's a different philosophy on how you handle things, and my philosophy on handling the quarterback is definitely to limit the number of hits they take that are unnecessary.'
Morris isn't totally clueless here.
If any NFL player qualifies to star in a 'Seinfeld' sequal to The Bubble Boy – you know, the TV episode about a guy spending his life inside a plastic container – it's Michael Tarrence Penix Jr. who finished four consecutive seasons at Indiana University with either a torn anterior cruciate ligament or a damaged shoulder.
Even so, consider three things: (1) Those injuries for Penix were so four, five, six and seven years ago; (2) and did I really see the guy that Morris didn't want taking any 'unnecesary' hits rising from underneath a pile of snarling Titans players Wednesday during those joint practices?
Indeed, I did. It happened after Penix zipped a deep touchdown pass to Ray-Ray McCloud. Moments later, with the quarterback celebrating his accomplishment, he exchanged words with Tennessee defenders, and then whistles began blowing and coaches began shouting. Then players from both sidelines began rushing to the field for a lot of pushing and shoving and even (gasp) tackling when there wasn't supposed to be any of that for these sessions.
Penix didn't get hurt.
Are you listening, Raheem?
Even if Penix did, it's football, not bingo.
"I like to compete at a high level, and when I compete I don't really do too much talking," Penix told me and other reporters. 'So somebody says something to me and, OK, I throw a touchdown. 'Now what y'all talking about?' And then I guess not everybody takes that the right way. And I think that's all it was.'
No, this was more than that. This was the normally soft-spoken Penix – whose teammates consistently say is quieter than your average morgue – going nuts out of nowhere. When the fight ended, he sought but failed to break away from one of his teammates trying to escort him to safety.
'That was somebody else out there,' Penix said, referring to whoever that was who possessed his body against the Titans.
'Football is a competition,' Penix added. 'I like to compete at a high level. I don't really do too much talking until somebody says something to me. I threw a touchdown, and 'What y'all talking about now?' I guess not everybody takes that the right way. I think that's all it was. They probably looked at me as just a quarterback; I wasn't that type of person. But I'm from Tampa.'
Penix mostly is from a football mindset. The world saw it during his two seasons at the University of Washington, where he led the Huskies to the College Football Playoff title game after he transferred from Indiana. He conitnued that mindset during his three starts last year for the Falcons.
Through it all, Penix operated as if he couldn't care less about his considerable aches and pains of the past.
'Yeah, man. I don't even focus on it no more,' Penix said. "Like 2021 was a tough season for me, because I was thinking about injuries. I wasn't able to play at a high level. That's where my mind was, and I wasn't able to play up to the level that I wanted to. But now it's like, man, I've been injured four times, I just pray. Just trust in my faith that God is going to protect me.
"I go out there and have fun, because any moment, that could be my last play. That's for anybody. That's the game we play. We know it comes with a lot, but we all love it, and that's why we do it each every day, and that's why I'm going to do it each and every day.
'So I don't ever think about the injuries, because I'm going to play like it's my last play no matter what. Whatever happens, God has a plan for me. So I'm going to continue to strive to get better and play for His glory."
Amen, and isn't this written somewhere before Matthew, Mark Luke or John? If you want to have success during the regular season, thou shalt play thy starting NFL quarterback during exhibition games.
At for a little while.