In what is the most talked about story from the first round of the NFL draft, the Atlanta Falcons surprisingly took University of Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick, despite signing Kirk Cousins to a big contract. NFL analyst Michael Lombardi was on the Pat McAfee show Friday afternoon to talk about the head-scratching decision and started off by saying that Penix is a “good player,” but talked about about the job of Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot.
“Look Michael Penix is a good player, that’s not the conversation here,” Lombardi said. “Michael Penix is a good player, but the job of a general manager is to prepare his team. It’s to marry the free agents system into the draft, and if you’re Terry “Super Bowl Winning GM” Fontenot who has won 21 games in 3 years since he’s been in charge. If you’re in that job, you know in October and November having watched Desmond Ridder play, watching Taylor Heinicke play, you need a quarterback. So you’re going through all of these quarterbacks. Remember Brett Veech went to Andy Reid and said we got to get this Patrick Mahomes kid he’s great, he did that in October.”
Lombardi further questions Falcons drafting Penix
Lombardi would go on to say that there is very little reasoning to paying Cousins a lot of money and drafting his possible future replacement with the eighth overall pick, but mentioned Fontenot has done this before in another position. By the time Cousins' contact ends, Penix will be 27 or 28 years old which is on the older side for a player to start their first game.
“You’re picking eighth overall, this is the second year in a row that Atlanta Falcons have used a luxury pick at the eighth pick overall. Last year they took Bijan Robinson, really good player, but Allgeier averaged 5 yards a carry and gained 1,000 yards the year before, like they didn’t need another back, they needed a defensive three technique,” Lombardi said. “This team finished 27th in forcing turnovers, they couldn’t get off the field when they had to, they have no pass rush. So now we come to the season, they need a quarterback, so I got no problem if you said in the off-season meetings that we’re going to pick a quarterback at 8. We know that Michael Penix is a pretty good chance he’s going to be there at 8. Why did I have to go to Arthur Blank and say give me $90 million of your coin and let’s go sign Kirk Cousins, like why would you do that.”
“And don’t come out at the press conference and say, if Michael has to sit 4, 5 years we’d be happy because we’re winning,” Lombardi continued. “Well I hate to break the news to you Terry, but if he’s sitting 4 years, you still gotta pick up the 5th year option and if he hasn’t played are you going to do that?”
ESPN's Mina Kimes also dumbfounded by Falcons' decision in NFL Draft
The NFL analyst was not the only one questioning the Falcons choice in the NFL Draft as even Mina Kimes of ESPN was on television and addressed it. She would say that the reasoning is “somewhat logically incoherent” as if the team is a win-now mode and locked up their quarterback in Cousins, Atlanta could have drafted a difference maker in a position of need.
“I find the justification to be somewhat logically incoherent,” Kimes said. “If you think you're going to be good, which is why you pay Kirk Cousins $100 million guaranteed, you're doing your team a disservice by not making your team better so that you can compete now… it just doesn't add up for the team or the player.”
There already have been reports that Cousins was not made aware that the Falcons would take Penix and was apparently “stunned” by the move according to NFL Insider Diana Russini. Atlanta is looking to improve after last season where they went 7-10 which was good for third in the NFC South.
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