The Atlanta Falcons have their answer at quarterback for Thursday night.
After a 34-3 loss to the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, the team had little time to linger. Green Bay is next on the schedule, and the bigger immediate question was who would be under center after Cooper Rush and Jack Strand both played but failed to get over 100 passing yards.
On Monday, Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski named Michael Penix Jr. the starter for the Week 3 matchup against the Packers.
Penix and Tua Tagovailoa were expected to compete for the job during training camp, but Penix was still working his way back into playing shape. He is returning from an ACL injury, while Tagovailoa is nearing a comeback from the oblique injury he suffered just days before the season opener against Pittsburgh. It is still unclear whether Tagovailoa will be active as the backup.
“I think Mike’s looked good,” Falcons offensive coordinator Tommy Rees said of Penix recently. “He’s been really going here for a few weeks now.
I didn’t know Mike pre-injury very well, except from afar. But he looks sharp, moving well.
I think he has confidence in it. Obviously, his arm talents is easily seen.
But in terms of the lower-body movement and his ability to play quick and do those things, I think Mike’s progressed really nicely.”
Last season, Penix started nine games, threw for 1,982 yards and nine touchdowns, and then his season ended because of the ACL injury.
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The matchup also brings back a long-dormant series, one that dates to 1936 but has spent much of the modern era gathering dust. For Washington, the appeal goes beyond the conference opener and the national window, because this is the kind of cross-division game that carries a little extra curiosity when a familiar name finally reappears on the schedule after so much time away. [Read more 🡒]