Falcons’ Michael Penix Jr. says Kirk Cousins reached out to him following shocking selection

Thursday must have been a bizarre night for Kirk Cousins, the Falcons‘ $180 million quarterback who watched as his team essentially drafted his future successor before Cousins has taken his first snap for the franchise. 

The night included a phone conversation between Cousins and Michael Penix Jr., the quarterback Atlanta surprisingly selected with the eighth overall pick. 

“I’m gonna keep it just between me and him right now,” Penix said of the conversation on Friday, via ESPN. “But it was definitely a good conversation and I’m super excited to work with him, and he said he’s the same with me.”

One would understand if Cousins was less than pleased with the Falcons drafting a quarterback in the first round. Adding insult to injury was the fact that Cousins wasn’t given a heads-up by the Falcons, who notified Cousins of their plans just before drafting Penix. 

“If you believe in a quarterback, you have to take him,” Falcons Terry Fontenot said when explaining his decision. “And if he sits for four or five years, that’s a great problem to have because we’re doing so well at that position.”

It appears that the Falcons are using the Packers‘ philosophy when it comes to quarterbacks. Green Bay drafted Brett Favre’s successor — Aaron Rodgers — when Favre was still very much Green Bay’s franchise quarterback. The Packers repeated history in 2020 when they drafted Jordan Love with Rodgers in the midst of winning back-to-back league MVP awards. 

As you can imagine, the relationships between Favre-Rodgers and Rodgers-Love was complicated, similar to the Joe Montana-Steve Young QB controversy that unfolded in San Francisco in the late 1980s and into the ’90s.  

It’ll likely be a similar situation with the Falcons’ two quarterbacks, even though both are saying the right things now. 

“If I’m not on the field right away, I’m learning,” Penix said on Friday. “But at the same time, I’m still gonna prepare like I’m gonna be on that field, because you never know what can happen. You never know when your number is called, but you gotta be ready.

“So, for me, I’m gonna do whatever I can to be ready at Day 1. … I’m still gonna put in the same work. I’m gonna prepare, I’m gonna work just as [much as if] I’m the starter.”