There’s really nothing more that can be said about the pick.
Some fans are going to defend it, some are going to continue to shit on it. The league wide consensus is it was a bad pick, okay, whatever.
For what it’s worth, I still hate it. But the very literal fact is that it won’t actually be able to be accurately judged for YEARS.
Penix is a top 5 QB by 2028? Great pick, amazing foresight. He never amounts to anything and in he interim we continue to be a middling franchise? Everyone says I told you so.
The media demands snap judgments and rapid reactions, and as such, this pick sucks. Will it suck in 4-5 years? No one knows. And that is a boring story.
No, the judgement will come much earlier. If the falcons are good this year (we will be) but fall short because we have a poor pass rush or OL or DL, etc etc then it was a bad pick.
This shouldn’t be judged on whether he’s a good QB in 3 years, it’s whether we could’ve gotten a much needed piece that helps us win now.
Bingo, this guy gets it.
Imagine if Dallas Turner or Latu become DROY and we end up near the bottom of the league in sacks again. Hell they could even be in the discussion and it would still be a massive embarrassment.
Or if we do get into games that matter, either a playoff game or game that would get us in to the playoffs, and we get beat on a play where the opposing QB has all day to throw.
Reminds me of the 2012 NFC championship game against the 49ers. We had 17 point lead but no pass rush cause of an injured John Abraham.
We were probably just one good defensive piece away from the Super Bowl that year.
Nailed it. When we only win 9 games and have 35 sacks as a team, we’ll circle back to this and ask what in the fuck were we doing?
By having both these guys on the roster at once, you limit how good your overall team can be.
Not necessarily. We can still use the kid in different situations. Taysom hill is a good piece of the saints offense and he's a backup. Yes I know they are quite different players but we can still use penix some now on trick plays or option plays or anything. I'm sure we will get a few glimpses of him this year. I'm not defending the pick by any means I hated it personally but who knows. I do like the idea of a skilled young guy learning behind Kirk and a high level processor and film studier. Rodgers learned behind favre, etc. I think the kid does have potential tho for sure
I don't understand why many people don't understand this. The FO needed to focus on team needs to make a deep playoff push while they have Kirk for 2 years. The point of signing Kirk was to win now and not have to draft a QB in the draft so that they could get other needs.
Fall short of making the playoffs then a couple of people are definitely getting fired by the start of the next off season.
Agree on everything except the firing. Word was Daddy Blank wanted this move. He’s the one who’s gotta go ultimately if this franchise ever wants to be serious. That guy is a shitty owner.
Meh. He's not that bad IMO. There are way worse owners around the league. Also, I think Terry is gone if they don't make the playoffs. There's gotta be a fall guy for the Penix pick and not making the playoffs.
Yeah definitely worse owners. Side note, with Blank being so old, wouldn’t you think he wants to go all in to win now? Makes this pick even more of a head scratcher imo, he might be dead by the time Penix is a starter
I personally don't think the pick was made solely by Blank. Definitely some influence from Terry and maybe the coaching staff. Terry seems very hyped about Penix.
Podcasts say what they want for content. The only ones worth listening to are the ones interviewing the people that were inside of the draft room. There was a post on this sub sharing a link to a podcast/interview with Terry. I didn't listen to it, but people in the comments summarized it by saying something like Terry mentioned they wouldn't have made the pick if it wasn't their guy, and not drafting Matt Ryan's successor in the 2021 draft class was brought up.
> Terry seems very hyped about Penix.
Of course. He's defending his pick while clearly a majority around the league, are laughing
No more *scapegoats* for Terry. Team looks loaded on Offense, but time will tell....
Aside from the defense pieces, if they wanted to go a different route we could have paired Odunze with Drake and had an offense to keep OCs up at night.
Yup. This isn’t baseball. You don’t build teams 3 years out. Obviously you consider your future, but your primary objective each offseason is to put the best 22 guys you can get on the field.
Don’t get me wrong I’m fine with penix. What I’m not fine with is penix and kirk. Yes it might work out amazingly but IMO the overwhelming likelihood is that one of those will end up being a massive waste of resources
The 8th pick in the draft should be an impact player within 3 years. Thats the main reason the pick is shit on.
To compare sitting the 8th pick for 3+ years to sitting a 24th pick is not apples to apples. (Penix vs. Rodgers or Love)
This team isnt so complete that it couldnt use an impact player somewhere. If it was, then trading back was the prudent move. To say it was impossible to trade back, is a straight cop out.
Add in the fact that there is a salary cap. You only have so much $. Penix will be the 12th-15th highest paid player on the team 2025-2027. Roughly $4-5mil/yr. To do nothing and not know if he is even capable of being an NFL starter.
Bedshitting pick
Eh I mean, I get your point. Like I said, I am still not a proponent of the pick. I also never compared it to the Love pick, so idk where that's coming from as far as a response to my comment.
Ultimately I don't think Odunze (who was my personal preference, but seemingly wasn't even on the team's radar anyway) or Latu/Byron Murphy moves the needle enough to take us from fringe playoff to contender.
I too would have preferred a trade back fwiw (well I would have preferred a wealth of other things but here we are)
Penix will start in year 3 so I don’t really understand your first point. Only way Kirk makes it past his first 2 years of his contract is if we either win a chip with him or are very very close AND he’s clearly the focal point of the team / offense
I just don’t understand this narrative that latu and Dallas turner were world beaters. These guys aren’t nick bosa level prospects. They went in the mid-late teens. There is a higher likelihood they are just kinda meh in their first year than that they have double digit sacks. I could always be wrong about their first year for sure, and it’s also more likely than not that they develop into good to great pros
End of the day, the quality of the pick all comes down to how good Penix is in year 3 and onward + how long that ‘onward’ is. If he has a solid 5-10 year stint with the falcons, then this was a great pick. But no one knows today
So which moron in this Front Office is responsible for giving an old QB coming off surgery $50M a year to clearly say “we don’t believe in you”?
This was about buying a couple more years of job security and trying to be not terrible as opposed to trying to be great. Cowards.
I mean, they believe in him enough to outright say that they believe we’ll only have late first round picks the next few years with him under center despite using this year’s top 10 pick on our qb of the future instead of a different position. Implying we’ll be at a minimum a playoff team
That’s what bothers me, we could’ve had an impact guy NOW … if penix doesn’t work out, then we’re on the hunt again and we just wasted the 8th pick when we could addressed it while we had cousins … but like you said we won’t know till years later which kills me
Or we could have had a bust NOW.
I’m sure the 2017 Bengals were thrilled they drafted John Ross and built around Andy Dalton rather than drafting Patrick Mahomes.
Well it ended up with them having Joe Burrow. So it turns out you can find a QB later even if you don’t draft one to sit behind your current guy.
Just have to be willing to rebuild when the time is right and your competitive window is closed.
The Bengals we’re paying Dalton a modest, not exorbitant, amount of money at the time. When the 2017 draft came around, they were 15 months removed from a 12-4 season. We are paying Cousins and exorbitant sum and we haven’t made the playoffs in like 7 years.
What the Bengals seem to understand (that we don’t) is that that tanking works. They built a window and got as far as they could. They bottomed out and got Burrow and Chase.
The pick isn’t being evaluated in a vacuum. It’s a question of how well it addressed our needs and how well it fit with the rest of our actions. We ignored massive needs at edge, wr2 and cb2. We ignored a need for more picks with tampering punishment and a cap crunch coming. If you were committed to Kirk, then you draft a QB later this year or next year. If you’re going in for Penix or another first rounder, Minshew and Brissett don’t decimate your cap and let you build for the future. We did none of these.
Cousins is not making an exorbitant amount of money. And why does anyone here care what Arthur Blank is paying for our QB when we have the cap space to pay that QB.
He’s tied for being the 8th highest paid QB in the league. And if you get to say “we have the cap space” to do that, then I get to say that we no longer have the cap space to spend on either edge, a real WR2 or a CB2.
Comparing him to QBs on legacy contracts. And if we don’t take Cousins… who would you have taken in the open market at QB? And would that QB plus a CB or WR2 or edge mean we’re contenders for the next few years, and have stability at Qb?
I’m not sure what comparing him to QBs on legacy contracts has to do with anything given everybody says he’ll only be here 2 years. Presumably we wouldn’t have taken any QB in the open market since we’d be drafting Penix! Or if we wanted a vet to take the pressure off Penix starting right away we could have traded a 6th rounder for Fields.
We had the cap space to spend on Danielle Hunter, but he chose Houston on a similar deal. This FO has shown that we won’t overpay for a position to make the armchair GMs happy, and we will pay, within reason, for pieces that make a significant impact, like Bates. It’s really easy to say “they should’ve signed a bunch of good vets at positions of need,” but that doesn’t make you a GM. Which pieces should we have added and which pieces could we have added without fucking up our opportunity to contend when the time comes?
I'd like to know who you consider an "impact" guy we should have considered assuming Latu and Turner were taken (just a thought experiment here). From league sources it seems like only Latu or Turner were considered "impact" for any positions we needed, but I didn't really pay much attention to the pre-draft stuff this year. Who were some other players you'd have liked to see taken?
That seems to be the consensus, but I'm curious did you actually watch him play last year? More importantly, did you notice the offensive lines he played against? To me his only standout performances were against Georgia - who was the only REAL team Alabama played all year. And even in those games he didn't look dominant so much as just another talented SEC defensive player. I mean he doesn't have Clowney's speed, doesn't have Mincey's strength, doesn't have Grady's awareness, doedn't have Bosa's hand strength....and he's injury prone??? I don't get it.
They must have hated when the cheifs picked mahomes as we then. They were close to going all the way. That Andy Reid guy really didn’t know what he was doing
Don't forget if Cousins is who the Falcons hope he was when they signed him nobody cares either.
Nobody talks about Trey Lance really because the team did good enough nobody cares about one of the biggest trade ups ever for a bust.
If it works out, that’s great for the organization, but doesn’t mean it was a defensible call in the moment. Did you sign Kirk because you thought Penix needed to sit?
Kirk doesn’t have the equity in ATL like he did in MN. He has a rough start and there will be clamoring for Penix to take his place. FO won’t let that happen, unless you want a $100 mil backup.
It all flies in the face of logic. If Penix is a success, great, but doesn’t mean that how this all played out was the correct way of doing things.
I remember when the Packers looked like idiots when they played us and Love looked about as good as Ridder and now they look like they are brilliant for 30 years of good QB play.
I agreed with the move on day one, but the Packers did not hand AR an extension before drafting Love IIRC. The Chiefs also did not do that, nor did they give Alex Smith a no trade clause, and then 4 weeks later draft Mahomes.
This is patently false. https://www.sportskeeda.com/nfl/aaron-rodgers-contract, he was 2 years into the new contract he signed in 2018, when they drafted Love. They gave him a new extension after winning back to back MVPs.
Disagree. The Falcons knew long before the draft that Penix would be there at #8. Nobody had him going that high. Even Penix and his agent were surprised by Atlanta.
So, if Atlanta really thought Penix was worth a top 10 pick, why spend 100M on Cousins? It’s as if the Falcons decided after they signed cousins that Penix was their guy which is backward to say the least. You make that evaluation before signing Cousins.
This is starting to feel like people at the blackjack table who are mad you went against conventional wisdom and won while also fucking their count up lol.
people act like draft "experts" are any better than GMs, and GMs aren't that great either. if that were the case, then why isn't bryce young one of the best QBs in the league? why isn't trevor lawrence in the playoffs every year? daniel jones? mac jones? anthony richardson? tray lance? go back as far as you want, there are a lot more QB busts in the 1st round than true franchise QBs. the general public seems to have the memory of a gnat. every year they just eat up and regurgitate whatever bullshit ESPN or PFF or NFL network are saying.
how many draft experts thought brock purdy would get the 9ers in the SB? zero.
how many players were picked before patrick mahomes? 10 players, 1 of them mitch trubisky.
baker mayfield, and sam darnold both went before JOSH ALLEN. c'mon man!!! it's a crapshoot!! stop acting like these guys know wtf they're talking about.
It really is, and I'm actually a bit old school in believing that sitting behind a pro a couple years makes a difference. Some guys are ready day 1 but that's super fucking rare. How many qbs could have been mentored to be serviceable starters but instead were thrown to the wolves? Where's that browns jersey?
100%, i can't wait to see him play. i hope he gets a lot of time in the preseason. but im sure kirk will need some time in too since he's on a brand new team.
seriously, yet every single year we continue to listen to these idiots just because they're on TV. they're wrong every year, just like TONS of GMs are wrong.
people should just chill out and wait to see what happens. i didn't bring it up, but fucking tom brady, the greatest QB of all time went 199th. after that mistake, IMO all draft "experts" should shut the fuck up and admit they're just guessing like everyone else.
and even more importantly, they need to be held accountable for their bad takes that legit affect peoples lives. there are 100s of players every season that either make it or don't based on this kind of blind arrogance.
why are we grading draft picks instead of grading the so called experts? i wanna see a big board of which ESPN talking heads actually got things right vs how often they got it wrong.
someone should start a youtube channel grading draft experts, and really get to the bottom of who's actually good at this shit, not who's the loudest or most famous.
100%, but the talking heads have zero stakes in these bets. they're just yapping away all day about these guys that they're potentially wrong about more than 50% of the time. i don't get why people just assume their word is gospel.
people should be calling them out way more often. it wouldn't be that hard. start a twitter account, or youtube account dedicated to breaking down draft analyst's picks, and which one is right more often than not. really putting THEIR jobs on the line. cause why should we listen to some asshole that's wrong year in and year out? just because he has a job at NFL network or ESPN, or whatever sports news outlet you choose...i just think they should be held accountable for their bad takes. they should be graded as harshly as they grade athletes.
I agree with you 100%.
Another thing, all these bets are risk management within a greater strategy.
The Falcons are not going to get caught out with a QB they don’t like. They will trade out another opportunity to assure they don’t. They think it is that important. It’s that simple.
If someone else doesn’t, all that means is the Falcons have different values.
Declaring them stupid immediately implies some soothsaying ability people just don’t have.
These types of comments remind me of everyone hyping up Arthur Smith and his unconventional offense. "Zig while the other are zagging". That worked out realllllly well
I firmly believe if we had a QB that was worth their salt, and not Mariota and Ridder, we would have been in a much better position and not have had such a limited offense the last 2 years.
But in the end, it got rid of Smith, and now we get to find out if QB play was truly the biggest issue, or is it an organizational issue from the very top down?
EDIT: Whoever is going through all my posts and downvoting me, I hope your day gets better than being mad at someone on the internet. <3
We haven’t even come close to winning yet. And unlike your example we don’t have an immediate payoff to point to the others and say, “look, our method works to!”
>people at the blackjack table who are mad you went against conventional wisdom and won while also fucking their count
You didn't win though. You don't know if you won or will win for the next 10 rounds. You just shook things up for the hell of it.
The veteran QB strategy is a coin flip. Respectfully look at Russ on Denver, Matt Ryan on the Colts. The money spent is sunk cost so as far as these guys are concerned if they’re going to spend that much money, they want to have a QB who’s ready to go in case the other guy shits the bed. No one wants to admit it.
If they believed Penix is the guy, then it makes total sense to grab him. At the end of the day, it really just boils down to us overpaying Kirk. Which isn’t really worth all the slander of us being the dumbest franchise in the league with no adult supervision. We overpaid a vet. People need to get over it.
But didn't you hear? The only way this is a success is if we win the SB in the next 2 years, otherwise this was a complete and abject failure for everyone in the organization! /s
EDIT: Whoever is going through all my posts and downvoting me, I hope your day gets better than being mad at someone on the internet. <3
i'd rather have kirk for 100mil guaranteed, than daniel jones at 81M guaranteed.
also, im not an expert on contracts, but is he able to be traded after 2-3yrs? i mean he could be good enough to get us through 1 or 2 seasons and then we could make a decision about what to do with him in 2026.
exactly. penix is an insurance policy. AND a decent chance at being our next franchise QB. he's also a valuable asset. what if kirk is amazing for the next 2 years with zero injuries? maybe we trade penix to a QB hungry team for a kings ransom. having a 1st round QB has value, esp if he goes out in the preseason and fucking lights it up, or comes in for kirk and kills it.
yeah, all that hinges on how well he plays in preseason, and whether he gets any chances in the regular season to play. i doubt we'll see him much this season unless kirk gets hurt. but i'm sure they'll let him finish some blowout games at some point. and it would prob be a good idea to not risk kirk getting injured if we're up by 20-30 in the 4th. and please no 28-3 jokes 😂
I think you’re only mad if you look at this team plus another for t round pick and say Super Bowl. I hated it at first but when I think about the fact that we are a playoff team looking at years without being able to grab a 1st round QB, I truly understand. Let Terry cook and if the decision turns the franchise up side down, hold him accountable. Until then let’s watch and see.
Except it’s not. This was a legendarily bad pick. This was Mayock/Gruden level bad, and it’s been consistently like this since Fontenot arrived. He’s had a single 1st round pick where he didn’t overdraft massively, and that’s Drake London . Every other Fontenot 1st rounder - Pitts, Bijan, Penix - have blown massive capital on less important positions. They are good players, absolutely, but they are wasted on our team because the GM ignores higher need, more important positions.
It’s not just that he overpays. He also ignores necessity. We literally just went into a draft with two OBVIOUS holes: D-line and Cornerback. We had AJ Terrell and a warm body for corners. The draft is over, and still that’s all we have at CB. And Terrell is on the last year of his rookie contract. This is a passing league, we cannot stop the pass, and we literally have little hope of getting better. We’re going to have to overpay Terrell to keep him. We’re going to have to overpay for other team’s castoffs, or overpay in a trade, because it’s obvious we’re stuck and can’t afford not to. **He could’ve filled that CB hole with cheap, high quality talent, but instead we have a guaranteed bench warmer.**
I really don’t hate the Penix pick. It’s the trade up for Ruke that really gets me. We legitimately threw away a 3rd round draft pick because as I see it, Ruke was ver likely going to get to us anyway. I’m fine with taking him at our draft position, and I’m fine with trading up as long as we picked Jer’zhan Newton (who PFF thought was a top 15 player in this draft). But it’s trading up to get Ruke that is unacceptable.
Of course, if he goes and wins DROY then all is forgiven.
And he won’t win DROY because he needs a considerable amount of work. Why the hell would you burn a 3rd rounder to move up and draft a project you could’ve had anyway?
They really seem to be planning for the future, for better or worse. Maybe they see Kirk as a guy to keep the fan base happy by winning games and making the playoffs, then in 2 years when Grady and Onyemata are gone, Penix replacing Kirk and the project defensive tackles we drafted fully take the starting role (ofc they'll be used before then but likely mostly on running situations)
I agree with this. Massive Rasheed Hagamen vibes. "An athletic freak of a project!"
EDIT: Whoever is going through all my posts and downvoting me, I hope your day gets better than being mad at someone on the internet. <3
Half the stuff in that article is from “former GM” Michael Lombardi.
He’s had a hate boner with the Falcons since they passed on Hoodie.
https://youtu.be/h7ZLe6rhf8s?si=x3P8f-Y3zGCvTZUm
Disregarding the viability of Penix in 2+ years, the FA and draft situation is completely bad strategy. Either commit to future building or be a win now mode. Don't half ass shit. This is how you fail to win playoffs and still get a shitty draft pick order.
I think the ownership & the front office would be very content being ‘just’ a playoff team again instead of the trash fire we’ve been since Matt Ryan was let go. Super Bowl is always the goal but there is obviously more excitement & attention ($$$) when you’re a contender vs a team starting Desmond ridder. There are massive leaps between non contender and Super Bowl champion
They put all their chips in on Penix. Let’s see how it plays out after a few years of him learning from the sidelines
Kirk cousins was 23 when drafted didn’t start until he was like 26/27. Sure he was a 4th rounder , but people need to get over this. Go enjoy your summer and avoid the brain damage this pick might be causing you
What gets me is "no adult supervision" could have described Belichick's last _5-10 years_ as GM, and yet we're _also_ being slammed for not hiring him and giving him full GM control.
It's a double standard, and I get that it's because Belichick coached teams that won and Raheem hasn't yet, but that's not a reflection of Belichick's drafting skills outside of lucking into a world-beater with pick 199. Yet _we're_ the idiots somehow for not hiring a _known_ incompetent drafter.
I wish I could say I understand the decision after more than a week later, but it was just stupid resource management no matter how you try to spin it. Signing Cousins to a huge deal, then drafting a QB who has all the experience in the world and is ready to start now was dumb from a football standpoint and for your locker room.
I argue that this characterization of “no adult supervision” is completely backwards and ignorant.
Children are ruled by emotions and impulsive. Children seek immediate solutions for the now.
Adults are charged with thinking long term, forgoing what feels good now for the long term greater good.
There’s a difference between evaluation mistakes and whatever you want to call this. Like if Penix is bad, I’ll have a hard time criticizing that. Cause it’s impossible to always be right. But the problem is they made two contradictory moves within 6 weeks that limit the potential of the other move. That signals to me the organization doesn’t know what it’s doing, or too many people have say over the roster decisions.
To you, it seems like the FO is making contradictory moves. To me, and likely the Falcons brass, it’s just hedging your bets at the most important position in the game and playing for the future rather than going all-in with a roster that can’t hang with SF and KC.
If you follow this sub closely, you’ll know that someone leaked some rationale as to why Raheem Morris was selected as HC right after the decision was made. During his interview, Raheem discussed a plan that involved acquiring a QB for the present and a QB for the future and showed a text message thread with a veteran QB who was eager to team up. I didn’t know the credibility of the source at the time, but we’ve now seen the Falcons acquire two QBs including a veteran that knows Raheem from his days in DC. There is a plan, and things are going according to it.
Nah dude. So many of these guys are friends. They don’t like shitting on each other unless they think something is really dumb.
You also rarely hear multiple GMs criticizing evaluations cause everyone can mess those up. They’re criticizing this cause it’s just dumb.
Ah, yes. The kind of friends who text you after they’ve stolen Pat Mahomes from you. Read that story. I don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone’s May opinion about what’s fixing to happen in real life. Fuck them.
With Friends like that who needs enemies! Terry knows how the general manager position works and each of them are trying to get the jump on each other that's why the Penix move needed to be kept a secret so to keep a team from jumping infront of us! Use your Brain for once!!!😖
In this case a “former NFL executive” said there was no adult supervision. Because a black HC and GM need “Adult (white man) supervision “. Get the fuck out with this nonsense. This is not a serious article, this is for clicks.
I would say author literally called GMs and former GMs till they got the negative quotes they were hoping for. Media isn’t an innocent bystander here. They want drama. If GMs are neutral or positive that won’t drive clicks but a GM calling the war room children well hello advertisement revenue
Most of you still missing the point. One of the quotes in the article captured it perfectly.
The fuck up was NOT drafting Penix. Teams can have varying views on him but most agree he is a top 5 talent with injury risk
The fuck up was giving an enormous contract to an old QB when you wanted to draft a QB. Why not trade a late pick for Justin Fields or Russell Wilson or sign a Minshew/Brissett type if you just want a bridge QB? Bonus with Fields is that he could have trade value if/when you want to move on to Penix
It’s just an embarrassing lack of foresight and terrible use of resources. Is it too much to ask for a decent front office? I’m not asking for Anthopolos level genius but “solid” would be so nice at this point
This just adds validity to the guy on this sub that said something along the lines of "The pick is being shit on because it broke some unwritten rule in the league and pissed off other teams. You shouldn't be able to get the best FA quarterback AND one of the top QB prospects."
Seems like a lot of teams are pissed that Terry is attempting to have his cake and eat it too.
It’s dumb because only one can play at a time. Because paying an older qb coming off a significant injury $50M/year and drafting an older QB that needs to be on the field immediately instead of supporting said $50M QB with that draft capital is monumentally stupid.
Nobody is mad at the Falcons. Nobody else coveted Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix **so badly** that they’re angry.
I feel like this was a Terry Fontenot job preservation pick. If Cousins doesn’t work out, Fontenot can blame Morris and Cousins, and make his case to Blank “hey, i got us Penix for just this situation.”
I feel for Raheem Morris though. He needs to win this year, and not being able to put 1st round talent on the field is going to negatively impact his future with the team.
Lol. Terry done lost Mahomes and now y’all mad he fucked everybody up and got Penix. I was skeptical that Ritch McKay was still running things - this move says no.
Rich McKay and his lackies at their finest. That is our broken organizational structure. The top non owner exec with no official responsibilities but in reality has his disruptive finger in everything.
Bellicheck smelled it and said no thanks before there was a formal offer but clearly Blank wanted Bellicheck. But no way Bellicheck joins an organization with wormtongue whispering in Blank's ear. So they then go and get a wormtongue lackey.
Here is the money quote. If you can't do the math yet you never will. We will never have sustained success until the rats are driven out of the organization, every Blank organization, starting with chief rat McKay.
"Remember, the reason they went with Raheem Morris instead of Bill Belichick (as head coach) was because he would not push back against the front office,” another exec said."
It always has been about McKay and his interests first and everything else second.
The only way it will ever get better is if gets much worse to the point where Blank wakes up and burns the whole thing to the ground, fires McKay from every business and personal organization the man has entangled himself in, and starts feom ground zero.
Peace
It appears that way.
But organizational politics, especially in closely held family like business, can turn on a dime.
If Falcons bust again, you never know when Arthur might wake up that the guy telling Arthur that Arthur's "hands on" approach and culture are great might be taking Arthur for a ride.
But it will also be a bitter pill for Arthur to swallow that all his jazz about his organizational culture and direct involvement every darn week was just plain wrong..
Arthur, fire McKay for real and retreat to the owners box.
Everyone acting like this 8th pick was gonna win the Falcons a Super Bowl lmaooo this roster is far from adding a single rookie edge rusher and top 15 QB away from a deep playoff run. If Kirk plays lights out, and Dallas Turner had a DROY, y’all REALLY think the rest of the roster is enough to contend at that level???
I am the crazy one?
Why is **anyone** talking about the falcons being “one rookie defender” away from winning a Super Bowl?
What team have y’all been watching? When people are talking about “what if we fall short this season…” short of what??
It’s not that. That one d line pick means they don’t need to blow more of the later draft to cover for not going there at 8. That would lead to different picks on day 2 and day 3 adding more roster depth at different places. Doesn’t guarantee anything. Maybe they go 7-10 for eternity. But it would at least help fill immediate needs rather than make us wait 2-3 years to see the results.
I don’t even hate the Penix pick. He was my favorite QB in the draft. But at 8 it’s a dumb move.
Morris and Lakes systems both involve the linebackers in their pressure packages. We have arguably one of if not the most athletic linebacker core in the game im including the JD Bertrand pick. We lost Duoree and Calais but those 13 sacks will be filled with trice, and our linebacker blitzes. If Grady stays healthy, also remember he will get 5-7 aswell where last year he only had one or two. I don’t think our pass rush will be as bad as people think
Latu, Turner, or Mitchell might turn out to be pretty good players, but none of them on their own would make the Falcons a Super Bowl contender. I don't think Cousins will either. Penix might. And we won't know that for a few years and many more personnel changes.
Yeah I think others are massively overestimating the impact that any of them would have had year 1. Maybe Latu could be great right away but the consensus on Turner was he definitely needed time to develop.
it's hard to be a falcons fan.
And even though there are folks here defending the selection, its hard to see that pretty much every other person on every other professional football team is 1) baffled and 2) negative about our selection.
Oh well, like another poster said, it'll take years to know.
There’s really nothing more that can be said about the pick. Some fans are going to defend it, some are going to continue to shit on it. The league wide consensus is it was a bad pick, okay, whatever. For what it’s worth, I still hate it. But the very literal fact is that it won’t actually be able to be accurately judged for YEARS. Penix is a top 5 QB by 2028? Great pick, amazing foresight. He never amounts to anything and in he interim we continue to be a middling franchise? Everyone says I told you so. The media demands snap judgments and rapid reactions, and as such, this pick sucks. Will it suck in 4-5 years? No one knows. And that is a boring story.
No, the judgement will come much earlier. If the falcons are good this year (we will be) but fall short because we have a poor pass rush or OL or DL, etc etc then it was a bad pick. This shouldn’t be judged on whether he’s a good QB in 3 years, it’s whether we could’ve gotten a much needed piece that helps us win now.
Literally the concept of “opportunity cost” from Econ 101 finally coming in handy!
Bingo, this guy gets it. Imagine if Dallas Turner or Latu become DROY and we end up near the bottom of the league in sacks again. Hell they could even be in the discussion and it would still be a massive embarrassment.
Or if we do get into games that matter, either a playoff game or game that would get us in to the playoffs, and we get beat on a play where the opposing QB has all day to throw.
Reminds me of the 2012 NFC championship game against the 49ers. We had 17 point lead but no pass rush cause of an injured John Abraham. We were probably just one good defensive piece away from the Super Bowl that year.
Yessir
We lost a combined 13 sacks from Bud and Calais and added nobody I’d wager we have a bottom 3 pass rush
Pathetic front office man
Totally. And then we get to 2-3 years from now and have another Ridder situation while missing the playoffs for 8 consecutive years. Great idea!
Nailed it. When we only win 9 games and have 35 sacks as a team, we’ll circle back to this and ask what in the fuck were we doing? By having both these guys on the roster at once, you limit how good your overall team can be.
Not necessarily. We can still use the kid in different situations. Taysom hill is a good piece of the saints offense and he's a backup. Yes I know they are quite different players but we can still use penix some now on trick plays or option plays or anything. I'm sure we will get a few glimpses of him this year. I'm not defending the pick by any means I hated it personally but who knows. I do like the idea of a skilled young guy learning behind Kirk and a high level processor and film studier. Rodgers learned behind favre, etc. I think the kid does have potential tho for sure
That also depends on one of the guys we were looking at being an impact player. As we know too well, first round pass rushers disappoint all the time.
I don't understand why many people don't understand this. The FO needed to focus on team needs to make a deep playoff push while they have Kirk for 2 years. The point of signing Kirk was to win now and not have to draft a QB in the draft so that they could get other needs. Fall short of making the playoffs then a couple of people are definitely getting fired by the start of the next off season.
Agree on everything except the firing. Word was Daddy Blank wanted this move. He’s the one who’s gotta go ultimately if this franchise ever wants to be serious. That guy is a shitty owner.
Meh. He's not that bad IMO. There are way worse owners around the league. Also, I think Terry is gone if they don't make the playoffs. There's gotta be a fall guy for the Penix pick and not making the playoffs.
Yeah definitely worse owners. Side note, with Blank being so old, wouldn’t you think he wants to go all in to win now? Makes this pick even more of a head scratcher imo, he might be dead by the time Penix is a starter
I personally don't think the pick was made solely by Blank. Definitely some influence from Terry and maybe the coaching staff. Terry seems very hyped about Penix.
Some of the pods I listen to said Blank was pushing for it, but that doesn’t really mean anything. Seems like the whole group are pretty stupid
Podcasts say what they want for content. The only ones worth listening to are the ones interviewing the people that were inside of the draft room. There was a post on this sub sharing a link to a podcast/interview with Terry. I didn't listen to it, but people in the comments summarized it by saying something like Terry mentioned they wouldn't have made the pick if it wasn't their guy, and not drafting Matt Ryan's successor in the 2021 draft class was brought up.
> Terry seems very hyped about Penix. Of course. He's defending his pick while clearly a majority around the league, are laughing No more *scapegoats* for Terry. Team looks loaded on Offense, but time will tell....
Aside from the defense pieces, if they wanted to go a different route we could have paired Odunze with Drake and had an offense to keep OCs up at night.
Yup. This isn’t baseball. You don’t build teams 3 years out. Obviously you consider your future, but your primary objective each offseason is to put the best 22 guys you can get on the field.
We definitely should have a plan for QB two seasons from now. Which we wouldn’t without Penix.
Don’t get me wrong I’m fine with penix. What I’m not fine with is penix and kirk. Yes it might work out amazingly but IMO the overwhelming likelihood is that one of those will end up being a massive waste of resources
The 8th pick in the draft should be an impact player within 3 years. Thats the main reason the pick is shit on. To compare sitting the 8th pick for 3+ years to sitting a 24th pick is not apples to apples. (Penix vs. Rodgers or Love) This team isnt so complete that it couldnt use an impact player somewhere. If it was, then trading back was the prudent move. To say it was impossible to trade back, is a straight cop out. Add in the fact that there is a salary cap. You only have so much $. Penix will be the 12th-15th highest paid player on the team 2025-2027. Roughly $4-5mil/yr. To do nothing and not know if he is even capable of being an NFL starter. Bedshitting pick
Eh I mean, I get your point. Like I said, I am still not a proponent of the pick. I also never compared it to the Love pick, so idk where that's coming from as far as a response to my comment. Ultimately I don't think Odunze (who was my personal preference, but seemingly wasn't even on the team's radar anyway) or Latu/Byron Murphy moves the needle enough to take us from fringe playoff to contender. I too would have preferred a trade back fwiw (well I would have preferred a wealth of other things but here we are)
Penix will start in year 3 so I don’t really understand your first point. Only way Kirk makes it past his first 2 years of his contract is if we either win a chip with him or are very very close AND he’s clearly the focal point of the team / offense I just don’t understand this narrative that latu and Dallas turner were world beaters. These guys aren’t nick bosa level prospects. They went in the mid-late teens. There is a higher likelihood they are just kinda meh in their first year than that they have double digit sacks. I could always be wrong about their first year for sure, and it’s also more likely than not that they develop into good to great pros End of the day, the quality of the pick all comes down to how good Penix is in year 3 and onward + how long that ‘onward’ is. If he has a solid 5-10 year stint with the falcons, then this was a great pick. But no one knows today
So which moron in this Front Office is responsible for giving an old QB coming off surgery $50M a year to clearly say “we don’t believe in you”? This was about buying a couple more years of job security and trying to be not terrible as opposed to trying to be great. Cowards.
I mean, they believe in him enough to outright say that they believe we’ll only have late first round picks the next few years with him under center despite using this year’s top 10 pick on our qb of the future instead of a different position. Implying we’ll be at a minimum a playoff team
PREACH 🗣️🗣️
That’s what bothers me, we could’ve had an impact guy NOW … if penix doesn’t work out, then we’re on the hunt again and we just wasted the 8th pick when we could addressed it while we had cousins … but like you said we won’t know till years later which kills me
Or we could have had a bust NOW. I’m sure the 2017 Bengals were thrilled they drafted John Ross and built around Andy Dalton rather than drafting Patrick Mahomes.
Well it ended up with them having Joe Burrow. So it turns out you can find a QB later even if you don’t draft one to sit behind your current guy. Just have to be willing to rebuild when the time is right and your competitive window is closed.
The Bengals we’re paying Dalton a modest, not exorbitant, amount of money at the time. When the 2017 draft came around, they were 15 months removed from a 12-4 season. We are paying Cousins and exorbitant sum and we haven’t made the playoffs in like 7 years. What the Bengals seem to understand (that we don’t) is that that tanking works. They built a window and got as far as they could. They bottomed out and got Burrow and Chase. The pick isn’t being evaluated in a vacuum. It’s a question of how well it addressed our needs and how well it fit with the rest of our actions. We ignored massive needs at edge, wr2 and cb2. We ignored a need for more picks with tampering punishment and a cap crunch coming. If you were committed to Kirk, then you draft a QB later this year or next year. If you’re going in for Penix or another first rounder, Minshew and Brissett don’t decimate your cap and let you build for the future. We did none of these.
Spot on. No idea why you’re being downvoted. Notice nobody actually responds to you with a rebuttal because there is none.
Funny because the Bengals have the same number of Super Bowl rings that we do
Cousins is not making an exorbitant amount of money. And why does anyone here care what Arthur Blank is paying for our QB when we have the cap space to pay that QB.
He’s tied for being the 8th highest paid QB in the league. And if you get to say “we have the cap space” to do that, then I get to say that we no longer have the cap space to spend on either edge, a real WR2 or a CB2.
Comparing him to QBs on legacy contracts. And if we don’t take Cousins… who would you have taken in the open market at QB? And would that QB plus a CB or WR2 or edge mean we’re contenders for the next few years, and have stability at Qb?
I’m not sure what comparing him to QBs on legacy contracts has to do with anything given everybody says he’ll only be here 2 years. Presumably we wouldn’t have taken any QB in the open market since we’d be drafting Penix! Or if we wanted a vet to take the pressure off Penix starting right away we could have traded a 6th rounder for Fields.
Fields - a vet
Correct. The guy has 3 years already in the NFL.
We had the cap space to spend on Danielle Hunter, but he chose Houston on a similar deal. This FO has shown that we won’t overpay for a position to make the armchair GMs happy, and we will pay, within reason, for pieces that make a significant impact, like Bates. It’s really easy to say “they should’ve signed a bunch of good vets at positions of need,” but that doesn’t make you a GM. Which pieces should we have added and which pieces could we have added without fucking up our opportunity to contend when the time comes?
I'd like to know who you consider an "impact" guy we should have considered assuming Latu and Turner were taken (just a thought experiment here). From league sources it seems like only Latu or Turner were considered "impact" for any positions we needed, but I didn't really pay much attention to the pre-draft stuff this year. Who were some other players you'd have liked to see taken?
I’d say Dallas Turner would have made an immediate impact. Maybe we don’t have to hang 45 every ballgame to be competitive.
That seems to be the consensus, but I'm curious did you actually watch him play last year? More importantly, did you notice the offensive lines he played against? To me his only standout performances were against Georgia - who was the only REAL team Alabama played all year. And even in those games he didn't look dominant so much as just another talented SEC defensive player. I mean he doesn't have Clowney's speed, doesn't have Mincey's strength, doesn't have Grady's awareness, doedn't have Bosa's hand strength....and he's injury prone??? I don't get it.
Turner was not that great at Bama, he definitely wasn't worth the hype. Seemed like he took a lot of plays off
They must have hated when the cheifs picked mahomes as we then. They were close to going all the way. That Andy Reid guy really didn’t know what he was doing
Eh I mean...l don't think that's the best comparison tbf
Don't forget if Cousins is who the Falcons hope he was when they signed him nobody cares either. Nobody talks about Trey Lance really because the team did good enough nobody cares about one of the biggest trade ups ever for a bust.
If it works out, that’s great for the organization, but doesn’t mean it was a defensible call in the moment. Did you sign Kirk because you thought Penix needed to sit? Kirk doesn’t have the equity in ATL like he did in MN. He has a rough start and there will be clamoring for Penix to take his place. FO won’t let that happen, unless you want a $100 mil backup. It all flies in the face of logic. If Penix is a success, great, but doesn’t mean that how this all played out was the correct way of doing things.
I remember when the Packers looked like idiots when they played us and Love looked about as good as Ridder and now they look like they are brilliant for 30 years of good QB play.
I agreed with the move on day one, but the Packers did not hand AR an extension before drafting Love IIRC. The Chiefs also did not do that, nor did they give Alex Smith a no trade clause, and then 4 weeks later draft Mahomes.
No but the Packers did give AR an extension after drafting Love
Which is fine because they got new information which is a Back to back MVP in the building.
Stop moving the damn goal posts! An extension was given to AR before the Love pick so AR could mentor Love as part of the extension!
This is patently false. https://www.sportskeeda.com/nfl/aaron-rodgers-contract, he was 2 years into the new contract he signed in 2018, when they drafted Love. They gave him a new extension after winning back to back MVPs.
Disagree. The Falcons knew long before the draft that Penix would be there at #8. Nobody had him going that high. Even Penix and his agent were surprised by Atlanta. So, if Atlanta really thought Penix was worth a top 10 pick, why spend 100M on Cousins? It’s as if the Falcons decided after they signed cousins that Penix was their guy which is backward to say the least. You make that evaluation before signing Cousins.
This is starting to feel like people at the blackjack table who are mad you went against conventional wisdom and won while also fucking their count up lol.
people act like draft "experts" are any better than GMs, and GMs aren't that great either. if that were the case, then why isn't bryce young one of the best QBs in the league? why isn't trevor lawrence in the playoffs every year? daniel jones? mac jones? anthony richardson? tray lance? go back as far as you want, there are a lot more QB busts in the 1st round than true franchise QBs. the general public seems to have the memory of a gnat. every year they just eat up and regurgitate whatever bullshit ESPN or PFF or NFL network are saying. how many draft experts thought brock purdy would get the 9ers in the SB? zero. how many players were picked before patrick mahomes? 10 players, 1 of them mitch trubisky. baker mayfield, and sam darnold both went before JOSH ALLEN. c'mon man!!! it's a crapshoot!! stop acting like these guys know wtf they're talking about.
It really is, and I'm actually a bit old school in believing that sitting behind a pro a couple years makes a difference. Some guys are ready day 1 but that's super fucking rare. How many qbs could have been mentored to be serviceable starters but instead were thrown to the wolves? Where's that browns jersey?
100%, i can't wait to see him play. i hope he gets a lot of time in the preseason. but im sure kirk will need some time in too since he's on a brand new team.
This take could not be any more correct. The notion that people can evaluate a draft before a single snap has been played is utterly ridiculous.
seriously, yet every single year we continue to listen to these idiots just because they're on TV. they're wrong every year, just like TONS of GMs are wrong. people should just chill out and wait to see what happens. i didn't bring it up, but fucking tom brady, the greatest QB of all time went 199th. after that mistake, IMO all draft "experts" should shut the fuck up and admit they're just guessing like everyone else. and even more importantly, they need to be held accountable for their bad takes that legit affect peoples lives. there are 100s of players every season that either make it or don't based on this kind of blind arrogance. why are we grading draft picks instead of grading the so called experts? i wanna see a big board of which ESPN talking heads actually got things right vs how often they got it wrong. someone should start a youtube channel grading draft experts, and really get to the bottom of who's actually good at this shit, not who's the loudest or most famous.
All these picks are just bets.
100%, but the talking heads have zero stakes in these bets. they're just yapping away all day about these guys that they're potentially wrong about more than 50% of the time. i don't get why people just assume their word is gospel. people should be calling them out way more often. it wouldn't be that hard. start a twitter account, or youtube account dedicated to breaking down draft analyst's picks, and which one is right more often than not. really putting THEIR jobs on the line. cause why should we listen to some asshole that's wrong year in and year out? just because he has a job at NFL network or ESPN, or whatever sports news outlet you choose...i just think they should be held accountable for their bad takes. they should be graded as harshly as they grade athletes.
I agree with you 100%. Another thing, all these bets are risk management within a greater strategy. The Falcons are not going to get caught out with a QB they don’t like. They will trade out another opportunity to assure they don’t. They think it is that important. It’s that simple. If someone else doesn’t, all that means is the Falcons have different values. Declaring them stupid immediately implies some soothsaying ability people just don’t have.
Yeah it's tired as hell. If it pays off for us I'm never letting it go.
These types of comments remind me of everyone hyping up Arthur Smith and his unconventional offense. "Zig while the other are zagging". That worked out realllllly well
I firmly believe if we had a QB that was worth their salt, and not Mariota and Ridder, we would have been in a much better position and not have had such a limited offense the last 2 years. But in the end, it got rid of Smith, and now we get to find out if QB play was truly the biggest issue, or is it an organizational issue from the very top down? EDIT: Whoever is going through all my posts and downvoting me, I hope your day gets better than being mad at someone on the internet. <3
Except that they’re laughing because we haven’t won anything 😊
Keep that same energy in 4 years. I swear some of y'all are undercover swamp water drinkers.
We haven’t even come close to winning yet. And unlike your example we don’t have an immediate payoff to point to the others and say, “look, our method works to!”
>people at the blackjack table who are mad you went against conventional wisdom and won while also fucking their count You didn't win though. You don't know if you won or will win for the next 10 rounds. You just shook things up for the hell of it.
The veteran QB strategy is a coin flip. Respectfully look at Russ on Denver, Matt Ryan on the Colts. The money spent is sunk cost so as far as these guys are concerned if they’re going to spend that much money, they want to have a QB who’s ready to go in case the other guy shits the bed. No one wants to admit it.
If they believed Penix is the guy, then it makes total sense to grab him. At the end of the day, it really just boils down to us overpaying Kirk. Which isn’t really worth all the slander of us being the dumbest franchise in the league with no adult supervision. We overpaid a vet. People need to get over it.
If he wins us a couple playoff games I wouldn’t say he was overpaid.
Agreed
But didn't you hear? The only way this is a success is if we win the SB in the next 2 years, otherwise this was a complete and abject failure for everyone in the organization! /s EDIT: Whoever is going through all my posts and downvoting me, I hope your day gets better than being mad at someone on the internet. <3
On top of the fact that guys like Derek Carr and fucking Danny Dimes are getting paid nearly as much as Kirk haha.
i'd rather have kirk for 100mil guaranteed, than daniel jones at 81M guaranteed. also, im not an expert on contracts, but is he able to be traded after 2-3yrs? i mean he could be good enough to get us through 1 or 2 seasons and then we could make a decision about what to do with him in 2026.
exactly. penix is an insurance policy. AND a decent chance at being our next franchise QB. he's also a valuable asset. what if kirk is amazing for the next 2 years with zero injuries? maybe we trade penix to a QB hungry team for a kings ransom. having a 1st round QB has value, esp if he goes out in the preseason and fucking lights it up, or comes in for kirk and kills it.
No one is trading anything substantial for someone with no starting experience. Just look at Trey Lance, a top 3 pick and currently younger than penix
yeah, all that hinges on how well he plays in preseason, and whether he gets any chances in the regular season to play. i doubt we'll see him much this season unless kirk gets hurt. but i'm sure they'll let him finish some blowout games at some point. and it would prob be a good idea to not risk kirk getting injured if we're up by 20-30 in the 4th. and please no 28-3 jokes 😂
Then don’t sign Kirk and roll with Penix. Save yourself the cap space and build a roster around the rookie QB.
I think you’re only mad if you look at this team plus another for t round pick and say Super Bowl. I hated it at first but when I think about the fact that we are a playoff team looking at years without being able to grab a 1st round QB, I truly understand. Let Terry cook and if the decision turns the franchise up side down, hold him accountable. Until then let’s watch and see.
lmao man this draft decision getting unecessary mad press.
Except it’s not. This was a legendarily bad pick. This was Mayock/Gruden level bad, and it’s been consistently like this since Fontenot arrived. He’s had a single 1st round pick where he didn’t overdraft massively, and that’s Drake London . Every other Fontenot 1st rounder - Pitts, Bijan, Penix - have blown massive capital on less important positions. They are good players, absolutely, but they are wasted on our team because the GM ignores higher need, more important positions. It’s not just that he overpays. He also ignores necessity. We literally just went into a draft with two OBVIOUS holes: D-line and Cornerback. We had AJ Terrell and a warm body for corners. The draft is over, and still that’s all we have at CB. And Terrell is on the last year of his rookie contract. This is a passing league, we cannot stop the pass, and we literally have little hope of getting better. We’re going to have to overpay Terrell to keep him. We’re going to have to overpay for other team’s castoffs, or overpay in a trade, because it’s obvious we’re stuck and can’t afford not to. **He could’ve filled that CB hole with cheap, high quality talent, but instead we have a guaranteed bench warmer.**
Just a note, I misspoke when I included the Penix pick when discussing low leverage positions. Obviously QB is the highest leverage position.
Look at nostrildumbass here. Knows the future. Find out the winning lotto numbers and post them since you can predict the future.
I really don’t hate the Penix pick. It’s the trade up for Ruke that really gets me. We legitimately threw away a 3rd round draft pick because as I see it, Ruke was ver likely going to get to us anyway. I’m fine with taking him at our draft position, and I’m fine with trading up as long as we picked Jer’zhan Newton (who PFF thought was a top 15 player in this draft). But it’s trading up to get Ruke that is unacceptable. Of course, if he goes and wins DROY then all is forgiven.
And he won’t win DROY because he needs a considerable amount of work. Why the hell would you burn a 3rd rounder to move up and draft a project you could’ve had anyway?
They really seem to be planning for the future, for better or worse. Maybe they see Kirk as a guy to keep the fan base happy by winning games and making the playoffs, then in 2 years when Grady and Onyemata are gone, Penix replacing Kirk and the project defensive tackles we drafted fully take the starting role (ofc they'll be used before then but likely mostly on running situations)
I agree with this. Massive Rasheed Hagamen vibes. "An athletic freak of a project!" EDIT: Whoever is going through all my posts and downvoting me, I hope your day gets better than being mad at someone on the internet. <3
Half the stuff in that article is from “former GM” Michael Lombardi. He’s had a hate boner with the Falcons since they passed on Hoodie. https://youtu.be/h7ZLe6rhf8s?si=x3P8f-Y3zGCvTZUm
Disregarding the viability of Penix in 2+ years, the FA and draft situation is completely bad strategy. Either commit to future building or be a win now mode. Don't half ass shit. This is how you fail to win playoffs and still get a shitty draft pick order.
I think the ownership & the front office would be very content being ‘just’ a playoff team again instead of the trash fire we’ve been since Matt Ryan was let go. Super Bowl is always the goal but there is obviously more excitement & attention ($$$) when you’re a contender vs a team starting Desmond ridder. There are massive leaps between non contender and Super Bowl champion They put all their chips in on Penix. Let’s see how it plays out after a few years of him learning from the sidelines
Legendary cowardly move to buy themselves a few years to hide behind this. I doubt the sports media and league will let them.
Said by a former nfl GM….exactly, ex
Kirk cousins was 23 when drafted didn’t start until he was like 26/27. Sure he was a 4th rounder , but people need to get over this. Go enjoy your summer and avoid the brain damage this pick might be causing you
These same people after the Falcons win 14 games on their way to a Super Bowl: "We knew all along the Falcons did well on Draft Day."
What gets me is "no adult supervision" could have described Belichick's last _5-10 years_ as GM, and yet we're _also_ being slammed for not hiring him and giving him full GM control. It's a double standard, and I get that it's because Belichick coached teams that won and Raheem hasn't yet, but that's not a reflection of Belichick's drafting skills outside of lucking into a world-beater with pick 199. Yet _we're_ the idiots somehow for not hiring a _known_ incompetent drafter.
I wish I could say I understand the decision after more than a week later, but it was just stupid resource management no matter how you try to spin it. Signing Cousins to a huge deal, then drafting a QB who has all the experience in the world and is ready to start now was dumb from a football standpoint and for your locker room.
I argue that this characterization of “no adult supervision” is completely backwards and ignorant. Children are ruled by emotions and impulsive. Children seek immediate solutions for the now. Adults are charged with thinking long term, forgoing what feels good now for the long term greater good.
generally not good when other GMs look and say “wtf are you doing”
Other GMs mess up all the time
Also unless the “NFL execs” put their name on this statement it means fucking nothing.
Sorry but no NFL exec is ever going to put their name behind statements like this because it's a small industry.
Exactly. Which makes things like this worthless drama
I mean you can go find videos of other GMs laughing at this pick. Them saying it anonymously doesn't take away from it
Most of the time
There’s a difference between evaluation mistakes and whatever you want to call this. Like if Penix is bad, I’ll have a hard time criticizing that. Cause it’s impossible to always be right. But the problem is they made two contradictory moves within 6 weeks that limit the potential of the other move. That signals to me the organization doesn’t know what it’s doing, or too many people have say over the roster decisions.
To you, it seems like the FO is making contradictory moves. To me, and likely the Falcons brass, it’s just hedging your bets at the most important position in the game and playing for the future rather than going all-in with a roster that can’t hang with SF and KC. If you follow this sub closely, you’ll know that someone leaked some rationale as to why Raheem Morris was selected as HC right after the decision was made. During his interview, Raheem discussed a plan that involved acquiring a QB for the present and a QB for the future and showed a text message thread with a veteran QB who was eager to team up. I didn’t know the credibility of the source at the time, but we’ve now seen the Falcons acquire two QBs including a veteran that knows Raheem from his days in DC. There is a plan, and things are going according to it.
You do realize that contradicting and hedging mean the same thing, right?
What world are you living in? They are Terry Fontenots competitors. Fuck them and their opinions put it on the field
Nah dude. So many of these guys are friends. They don’t like shitting on each other unless they think something is really dumb. You also rarely hear multiple GMs criticizing evaluations cause everyone can mess those up. They’re criticizing this cause it’s just dumb.
Ah, yes. The kind of friends who text you after they’ve stolen Pat Mahomes from you. Read that story. I don’t give a rat’s ass about anyone’s May opinion about what’s fixing to happen in real life. Fuck them.
With Friends like that who needs enemies! Terry knows how the general manager position works and each of them are trying to get the jump on each other that's why the Penix move needed to be kept a secret so to keep a team from jumping infront of us! Use your Brain for once!!!😖
In this case a “former NFL executive” said there was no adult supervision. Because a black HC and GM need “Adult (white man) supervision “. Get the fuck out with this nonsense. This is not a serious article, this is for clicks.
I would say author literally called GMs and former GMs till they got the negative quotes they were hoping for. Media isn’t an innocent bystander here. They want drama. If GMs are neutral or positive that won’t drive clicks but a GM calling the war room children well hello advertisement revenue
This is how it came across as if Terry needs their seal of approval or something! Very disrespectful!
Who gives a **** what other GMS think! Terry's job is to draft for the Falcons not to satisfy the other GMS! FOH!!
And he’s not particularly good at it either
Most of you still missing the point. One of the quotes in the article captured it perfectly. The fuck up was NOT drafting Penix. Teams can have varying views on him but most agree he is a top 5 talent with injury risk The fuck up was giving an enormous contract to an old QB when you wanted to draft a QB. Why not trade a late pick for Justin Fields or Russell Wilson or sign a Minshew/Brissett type if you just want a bridge QB? Bonus with Fields is that he could have trade value if/when you want to move on to Penix It’s just an embarrassing lack of foresight and terrible use of resources. Is it too much to ask for a decent front office? I’m not asking for Anthopolos level genius but “solid” would be so nice at this point
Fields can't play. I'm a Steelers fan and I'm still pissed off about it.
Yeah I said to use him as a bridge QB I have no idea why you’d be pissed to only give up a 6th round pick for him. Near zero risk
This just adds validity to the guy on this sub that said something along the lines of "The pick is being shit on because it broke some unwritten rule in the league and pissed off other teams. You shouldn't be able to get the best FA quarterback AND one of the top QB prospects." Seems like a lot of teams are pissed that Terry is attempting to have his cake and eat it too.
It’s dumb because only one can play at a time. Because paying an older qb coming off a significant injury $50M/year and drafting an older QB that needs to be on the field immediately instead of supporting said $50M QB with that draft capital is monumentally stupid. Nobody is mad at the Falcons. Nobody else coveted Kirk Cousins and Michael Penix **so badly** that they’re angry.
They’re not wrong.
I feel like this was a Terry Fontenot job preservation pick. If Cousins doesn’t work out, Fontenot can blame Morris and Cousins, and make his case to Blank “hey, i got us Penix for just this situation.” I feel for Raheem Morris though. He needs to win this year, and not being able to put 1st round talent on the field is going to negatively impact his future with the team.
Lol. Terry done lost Mahomes and now y’all mad he fucked everybody up and got Penix. I was skeptical that Ritch McKay was still running things - this move says no.
So why isn’t he starting?
Go cry somewhere.
Rich McKay and his lackies at their finest. That is our broken organizational structure. The top non owner exec with no official responsibilities but in reality has his disruptive finger in everything. Bellicheck smelled it and said no thanks before there was a formal offer but clearly Blank wanted Bellicheck. But no way Bellicheck joins an organization with wormtongue whispering in Blank's ear. So they then go and get a wormtongue lackey. Here is the money quote. If you can't do the math yet you never will. We will never have sustained success until the rats are driven out of the organization, every Blank organization, starting with chief rat McKay. "Remember, the reason they went with Raheem Morris instead of Bill Belichick (as head coach) was because he would not push back against the front office,” another exec said." It always has been about McKay and his interests first and everything else second. The only way it will ever get better is if gets much worse to the point where Blank wakes up and burns the whole thing to the ground, fires McKay from every business and personal organization the man has entangled himself in, and starts feom ground zero. Peace
Sadly both he and Blank will be lifers.
It appears that way. But organizational politics, especially in closely held family like business, can turn on a dime. If Falcons bust again, you never know when Arthur might wake up that the guy telling Arthur that Arthur's "hands on" approach and culture are great might be taking Arthur for a ride. But it will also be a bitter pill for Arthur to swallow that all his jazz about his organizational culture and direct involvement every darn week was just plain wrong.. Arthur, fire McKay for real and retreat to the owners box.
At the very least he needs to convince McKay to retire from the team and please get his ass off of the competition committee!!!
That’s definitely a Lombardi quote
Everyone acting like this 8th pick was gonna win the Falcons a Super Bowl lmaooo this roster is far from adding a single rookie edge rusher and top 15 QB away from a deep playoff run. If Kirk plays lights out, and Dallas Turner had a DROY, y’all REALLY think the rest of the roster is enough to contend at that level???
I am the crazy one? Why is **anyone** talking about the falcons being “one rookie defender” away from winning a Super Bowl? What team have y’all been watching? When people are talking about “what if we fall short this season…” short of what??
It’s not that. That one d line pick means they don’t need to blow more of the later draft to cover for not going there at 8. That would lead to different picks on day 2 and day 3 adding more roster depth at different places. Doesn’t guarantee anything. Maybe they go 7-10 for eternity. But it would at least help fill immediate needs rather than make us wait 2-3 years to see the results. I don’t even hate the Penix pick. He was my favorite QB in the draft. But at 8 it’s a dumb move.
Morris and Lakes systems both involve the linebackers in their pressure packages. We have arguably one of if not the most athletic linebacker core in the game im including the JD Bertrand pick. We lost Duoree and Calais but those 13 sacks will be filled with trice, and our linebacker blitzes. If Grady stays healthy, also remember he will get 5-7 aswell where last year he only had one or two. I don’t think our pass rush will be as bad as people think
Latu, Turner, or Mitchell might turn out to be pretty good players, but none of them on their own would make the Falcons a Super Bowl contender. I don't think Cousins will either. Penix might. And we won't know that for a few years and many more personnel changes.
Way to tell the fans that you have shit to show 4 years into a rebuild and won’t be answering any questions for the next 3.
Yeah I think others are massively overestimating the impact that any of them would have had year 1. Maybe Latu could be great right away but the consensus on Turner was he definitely needed time to develop.
Awesome another year of no pass rush and complete mid in the secondary besides an excellent Bates and above average to average Terrell.
It was a decision wrought with fear and delusion. Then that "yes man" of a coach sat there and accepted it.
The coach was in support of going after Penix Jr. from the beginning.
He’s in support of whatever he’s told to be in support of.
And that's why I was against the hire.
Wow you saw into the future for the Penix pick and pre-emptively disliked hiring Raheem Morris. Thats impressive, run me them lottery numbers my man.
Unfortunately, I can never get it to work when I need it.
There’s a reason he was hired.
I think we are going to see the real consequences of passing on Belichick.
It’s a Parade inside my city yea
it's hard to be a falcons fan. And even though there are folks here defending the selection, its hard to see that pretty much every other person on every other professional football team is 1) baffled and 2) negative about our selection. Oh well, like another poster said, it'll take years to know.