While the Falcons’ selection of Michael Penix at No. 8 overall was a head scratcher — especially after the team signed Kirk Cousins — we can at least take solace in the fact that some explanation for the pick has since been made public. Here’s Albert Breer explaining how head coach Raheem Morris and general manager Terry Fontenot pitched owner Arthur Blank on the notion of drafting Penix:
The coach and GM explained that taking Penix at No. 8, six weeks after breaking the bank for Cousins, wouldn’t be popular. They then went through the history, which showed, based on their work, that outside of an outlier year such as 2020, only one or two quarterbacks per draft class, and very few drafted outside the top 10, make it.
In other words, Morris and Fontenot (and Blank) were duped by the most flagrant confusion of correlation and causation imaginable. The logic here has three steps:
- Very few QBs drafted outside the top 10 succeed.
- We have a top-10 pick now, and we might not have one in the near future.
- Therefore, we should draft a QB with our top-10 pick.
The problem is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a second: there has to be a quarterback worth drafting in the top-10 for this strategy to work. If there’s no QB whose talent warrants a top-10 pick, then taking one in the top-10 won’t make that guy a top-10-caliber QB. All you’ve done is overspend on a non-top-10 QB who is still unlikely to succeed.
Is Penix a Top-10 Talent?
Is it possible the Falcons did actually have a top-10 grade on Penix? Breer explains:
The most frustrating thing for any coach is having a guy with big-time physical tools who simply can’t translate those skills onto the field. So when a coach sees uncoachable traits that fuel that translation, his eyes light up. Long story short, the Falcons’ new staff saw it in Penix’s deep-ball accuracy, his ability to anticipate throws, and how quickly and naturally he processed what was in front of him.
Deep-ball accuracy isn’t normally what we think of as an “uncoachable trait.” Presumably the only way to be good at throwing accurate deep balls is to practice throwing deep balls, and good coaching can train proper technique and proper practice methods. And then of course the other thing about deep-ball accuracy is that it’s measurable.
