ESPN’s Booger McFarland likes the idea of giving Kirk Cousins $180 million and understands the potential of Michael Penix Jr, but these decisions less than two months apart “don’t make sense together.”
“It’s tough to try to win now, which is why they signed Kirk Cousins to go with all those offensive weapons and try to prepare for the future, which is why they drafted Michael Penix Jr. To me, you’ve got to do one or the other. See both of these picks make sense, but they don’t make sense together,” the NFL analyst said Wednesday on ESPN’s “NFL Live.”
The Falcons, eager to move beyond last season’s lackluster quarterback carousel of Desmond Ridder and Taylor Heinicke, signed Cousins to a four-year deal with $100 million guaranteed in March.
Fast-forward to last week’s 2024 NFL Draft, with Atlanta brass stunning the league — and their new starting quarterback — by grabbing former Washington product Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick.
Though Atlanta GM Terry Fontenot explained the team’s rationale of adding the best player available in Penix Jr., McFarland suggested that if the 23-year-old quarterback (24 next week) steps on the field “before the next two years,” the Falcons are looking at a nine-figure mistake.
“I don’t care how many times [ESPN’s NFL Insider] Adam [Schefter] talk about debating it, ain’t no debating going on, this is a bad pick. This was a bad pick for the next two years until Michael Penix Jr. gets on the field, and if he gets on the field before the next two years, that’s a waste of $100 million, that’s why it was a bad pick,” he said.
Fontenot, whose draft day exchange with Falcons owner Arthur Blank went viral, stated last week if Penix Jr. “sits for four or five years, that’s a great problem to have because we’re doing so well at that position.”
“It’s as simple as, if you see a guy you believe in at that position, you have to take him,” the Falcons exec said.
Making the pick is “as simple as that,” but navigating the fallout of a quarterback controversy of one’s own making is something the Falcons will have to grapple with as the offseason continues.
