Michael Penix Jr. has goal of being ‘unselfish teammate’ alongside Kirk Cousins

When Michael Penix Jr. went off the board at No. 8 overall to the Falcons, the immediate question was what’s the deal with Kirk Cousins.

Well, the former Washington quarterback is ready to be “unselfish,” learn and develop behind Cousins and get acclimated to the NFL. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported the potential was too good to pass up after scouting him for so long.

The Falcons are ready to play the long game with Penix Jr.

“I talked to Michael Penix and I asked him, how do you balance that because you want to play, you’re a competitor, but you know that your situation, you’re going to have to wait,” Fowler said on SportsCenter. “He said ‘My goal is just to be an unselfish teammate. I’m not worried about when I’m playing. If I maximize my potential, all that stuff will get worked out.’ He said he’s a big fisherman. He hopes to fish with his new teammate Kirk Cousins … 

“So this is a player who embraces the spotlight though … And hey, Coach Raheem Morris made no mistake about it. He said, ‘Look, we’ve been scouting this guy for a while even when we signed Kirk Cousins. We knew we were high on Michael Penix. We still had to do a lot of recon work’ … But this is a guy that’s a ceiling play for them.”

Over the course of his college career, Penix Jr. lit it up with 13,741 yards, 96 touchdowns, 34 interceptions and a 63.3% completion percentage.

Falcons coach Raheem Morris noted the Rams example with Matthew Stafford’s availability and health, as it relates to Cousins.

“You know, Morris said ‘look when we were in LA,’ when he was the defensive coordinator, ‘when we had Matthew Stafford we were making the playoffs and winning Super Bowls,’” Fowler said. “‘When we didn’t. We weren’t in the playoffs.’ You gotta take that shot at that position for the short term and the long term.”

Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot said the team had the future in mind when making the decision to draft Penix, emphasizing that Cousins is their quarterback for the short-term.

“Kirk Cousins is our quarterback,” Fontenot said. “We’re very excited about Kirk. We’re very excited about this team. Michael Penix is… we’re talking about the future. You look at the future. You look at the big picture. We are very excited about that quarterback room, and again, Kirk is our quarterback. But adding Michael Penix is thinking about the future.”