Arguably, nobody has extra at stake over the subsequent three weeks than Falcons normal supervisor Terry Fontenot. With the Kirk Cousins period already reaching an unceremonious finish, Atlanta was pressured to shred its grasp plan.
Ever since drafting quarterback Michael Penix Jr., Cousins’ alternative for the remainder of the season, everybody within the Falcons group, together with Fontenot and head coach Raheem Morris, has careworn the long-term imaginative and prescient behind their stunning NFL Draft choice.
Begin Cousins, who signed a four-year, $180 million contract in March, and permit Penix to review behind him.
“This can be a choose interested by the longer term,” Fontenot stated hours after the staff chosen Penix. (h/t Sports Illustrated)
The Falcons entered the season as the favourite to win the NFC South. Giving Penix the equal of a faculty soccer redshirt as Cousins led the staff to the postseason was an attractive technique. In any case, it labored fairly properly when the Chiefs did it with Alex Smith and Patrick Mahomes in 2017.
That blueprint additionally insulated Fontenot from criticisms of Atlanta drafting Penix, making a luxurious choice when the Falcons had a obtrusive want (and nonetheless do) at edge-rusher.
However Fontenot has no cowl as Penix prepares to begin the remainder of the season. If he struggles, the Falcons may have a severe choice to make about Fontenot’s future.
The staff’s normal supervisor for the previous 4 seasons, he constructed three 7-10 rosters from 2021-23. At 7-7 this season, the Falcons may nonetheless make it 4 of 4.
In his first 4 NFL Drafts, Fontenot used 4 top-10 picks on offensive gamers, together with tight finish Kyle Pitts (No. 4, 2021), huge receiver Drake London (No. 8, 2022), operating again Bijan Robinson (No. 8, 2023) and Penix (No. 8, 2024).
Atlanta hasn’t completed higher than fifteenth in scoring offense in the course of the Fontenot period. This season, the Falcons are twenty first in scoring (20.9 factors per sport).
Fontenot has handed on a number of excellent younger defenders, together with edge defenders Jared Verse, Micah Parsons and lineman Jalen Carter. Every would have been extraordinarily precious for a staff with arguably the league’s worst go rush.
This season, the Falcons rank last in sacks (23) and twenty sixth in strain charge (19.8 p.c). Throughout Fontenot’s tenure, the Falcons have 104 sacks, 23 fewer than the Panthers, who rank thirty first within the league in sacks throughout that span.
In rationalizing the staff’s daring choice to draft Penix a month after signing Cousins to a profitable multiyear contract, Falcons brass was bullish on the staff’s 2024 potential.
“We do not wish to be again on this place once more to choose this man,” Morris stated on the time.
After touchdown a top-10 choose in 4 consecutive drafts, Atlanta hoped to make its picks within the 20s — on the earliest — in 2025 and past. Fontenot’s response to Morris rings correct, simply not in the way in which he may need anticipated in April.
“We can’t be,” he stated.
