From no QBs to 2 QBs: Will Falcons’ risk in drafting Michael Penix Jr. pay off?

A year ago, the Falcons were criticized for not doing enough to improve at quarterback, but did Atlanta go too far to the other extreme on Thursday night?

Convincing fans that taking Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 overall was the right call will be one challenge for the Falcons, but the more immediate concern is smoothing it over with Kirk Cousins, who was signed to a $180 million contract just last month.

Cousins didn't find out until Atlanta was on the clock that the Falcons were drafting a quarterback, and his agent, Mike McCartney, said they weren't expecting the move at all.

"Yes, it was a big surprise," McCartney told NFL Network on Thursday night. "We had no idea it was coming. The truth is the whole league had no idea this was coming. We got no heads-up. Kirk got a call from the Falcons when they were on the clock. That was the first we heard. It never came up in any conversation."

Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot explained the move as an investment in the sport's most important position, with Cousins as the team's immediate starter and Penix as his eventual successor.

"Kirk Cousins is our quarterback," Fontenot said in his opening statement. "We're very excited about Kirk, very excited about this team. Michael Penix, we're talking about the future."

There's no precedent for a team paying a guaranteed $100 million to one quarterback and using such a high draft pick on another in the same offseason. If Cousins plays well immediately and the Falcons win, it just means not having to rush Penix, who played six years of college football and turns 24 in two weeks, onto the field as a rookie. But Atlanta is trying to end a six-year playoff drought, and the redundancy of using their top pick on another quarterback was seen by most as something that won't make the Falcons better in 2023.

The move was widely panned by NFL experts in their post-draft analysis. ESPN called it "a shocking pick," leading Mel Kiper's list of "head-scratching moves" for the first round. The Ringer gave the Falcons a "D-minus" for the pick, calling it a "bona fide stunner." The Athletic gave it a C, USA Today a C-minus, and NFL Network gave it a C, calling it "one of the riskier draft picks in recent memory."

[READ MORE: 2024 NFL Draft grades: Bears land pair of A's for top-10 duo in Round 1]

Atlanta was widely expected to use its top pick on defense, to address a neglected pass rush, though there were no defensive players taken in the first 14 picks, doubling the draft record. Quarterbacks had accounted for the top three picks, and most analysts expected the fourth to be Michigan's J.J. McCarthy, who went 10th to the Vikings, and not Penix, who was rated as the draft's No. 52 overall prospect by The Athletic's Dane Brugler.

[READ MORE: NFL Draft's historic QB run was all about dollars and sense]

Can the two quarterbacks co-exist? Cousins turns 36 in August and is coming off a torn Achilles tendon. Despite that, the Falcons gave him a four-year, $180 million contract that made him the high-dollar contract of NFL free agency. Penix, himself with a long injury history, would have to wait two years or more if Cousins is healthy and plays well.

The glass-half-full model for this would be the Packers, who drafted Jordan Love with the No. 26 overall pick in 2020 when Aaron Rodgers was 36. Rodgers won MVP honors in each of the next two seasons, and Love would start only one game in his first three years. But he stepped in as a starter in 2023 and played well, throwing for 4,159 yards and 32 touchdowns. At the same time, Penix will be the same age (24) this season as Love was when his fourth NFL season began, and being picked eighth is a much more significant investment.

Cousins' age always meant he wasn't a long-term solution — after the first two years of his contract, there is only $10 million in guaranteed money, so the Falcons could in theory move on after the 2025 season with $25 million in dead money counting against their 2026 salary cap. But it's unusual to talk about a quarterback's expiration date before he's played a single game with a new team.

"It was pretty simple for us," first-year head coach Raheem Morris said Thursday night. "When you get Kirk Cousins, you talk about short-term winning, winning right now, which we know we're going to be in position to do. We won't have the ability to be picking this high again with the guy that we got. These guys go off the board pretty quickly, and we thought it would be important for us to address our future quarterback right now."

Barring an injury to Cousins, picking Penix doesn't help the Falcons in 2023, and a top-10 pick was a chance to upgrade the team's chances to win now. That could have been a pass-rusher like Alabama's Dallas Turner, who ended up going 17th to Minnesota, or another offensive weapon like Penix's top receiver, Rome Odunze, who went a pick later to Chicago. The Falcons will be able to address their pass rush with the No. 43 pick, the 11th pick in the second round, with prospects such as Alabama's Chris Braswell or Western Michigan's Marshawn Kneeland.

Cousins is used to delicate quarterback situations; when he came into the league, it was as the second quarterback selected by Washington in the 2012 draft, a fourth-round pick the same year Robert Griffin III was taken No. 2 overall. Cousins, much like Penix, was 24 as a rookie, and he had only four starts in his first two seasons, going 1-3 with eight touchdowns against 10 interceptions. He didn't become a full-time starter until his fourth year, throwing for 29 touchdowns in leading Washington to a division title. His NFL career continues almost a decade later.

It's a risk for Atlanta to use such a premium draft pick on a long-term investment when most teams would put everything into helping the immediate team win as much as possible, but this is something the Falcons believe in.

"These are not easy decisions. These are tough decisions," Fontenot said. "But we're thinking about the fans, thinking about this organization. We're going to build a sustained winner, and we're going to win for a long time. That's the most important position in football."

If anything, the Falcons' overinvestment is in response to two years ago, when Matt Ryan's long run as Atlanta's franchise quarterback ended and the team didn't have a strong replacement in place.  A key part of the team's struggles in the past two seasons was disappointing play from Desmond Ridder, and this aggressive approach stands in contrast to that relative inaction the last time around.

Penix will be introduced in Atlanta at a press conference on Friday, and Falcons fans will have to compartmentalize their excitement, identifying the rookie as a future star but one unlikely to take the field this year if things go as planned with Cousins. How he handles that dynamic, and how the seasoned veteran handles that, remains to be seen.

"That's the nature of the beast. ... At some point, you have to find a way to have that succession plan in place," Morris said. "It just so happened it poses itself tonight. With the guy that we have and the guy that we got, we don't want to be back in this position again to pick that guy. We won't be. ... Our job is to win long-term. Our job is to win immediately. Our job all plays into it together."

Greg Auman is FOX Sports' NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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