When the Falcons kick off their 2026 NFL season on Sunday, Sept. 13, at the Steelers, most of the national attention will be on Pittsburgh quarterback and future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers in the final Week 1 start of his career. But who gets the call under center for Atlanta? It will be a southpaw. Let's break down the competition, with odds from FanDuel.
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I will start with the process of elimination and say that if current third-stringer Trevor Siemian (+8000 to be the Week 1 starter) is the guy, then something clearly went badly wrong at Falcons camp. The journeyman, who is 15-18 as an NFL starter but hasn't been one since 2023 with the Jets, was signed to a one-year deal in March simply to provide depth and experience as the QB3.
Personally, I can't remember the last time we had a pair of lefties battling to be an NFL starting quarterback, but that's the case for the Falcons with new addition Tua Tagovailoa and incumbent Michael Penix Jr. And with the injury histories of both, maybe it's not such a long shot that Siemian plays some this season.
How rare is it simply to have a lefty starting QB in the league? When the Dolphins visited the Browns in Week 7 last year, the QBs were Tagovailoa for Miami and Dillon Gabriel for Cleveland. It marked the first matchup between left-handed starting quarterbacks since Sept. 17, 2006, when the Falcons' Michael Vick faced off against the Buccaneers' Chris Simms.
Tagovailoa and Penix were set to meet in Week 8 of 2025 in Atlanta, but Penix missed it injured and Tua instead faced off against Kirk Cousins, who was released this offseason and now fighting for the Week 1 job with the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Falcons are starting over, with former star QB and CBS Sports NFL analyst Matt Ryan hired as president of football in a newly created position, Ian Cunningham as the new general manager and former Browns coach Kevin Stefanski as the new HC.
Stefanski took Cleveland to the playoffs twice, in 2020 and 2023, being named NFL Coach of the Year both seasons. The Falcons haven't made the playoffs in eight seasons -- the second-longest drought in the NFL -- or finished with a winning record since 2017. The team's win total this season is set at 6.5, and it is +310 to make the playoffs and -400 to miss.
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Penix is recovering from the third torn ACL of his career -- he suffered two on his right knee during his time at Indiana. This one was his left knee, suffered in Week 11 last year. Penix is able to do individual drills and 7-on-7 work, as he did last week in OTAs, but is not medically cleared for team drills yet.
Needless to say, how ready Penix might be by the time training camp rolls around could determine whether he's even in the mix for Week 1, and he's -106 to be the guy. Penix, 4-8 as an NFL starter, said he started throwing again in mid-March, but last week. Stefanski said he wasn't ready to put a timetable on when Penix might be ready for live play, but he expects the QB to be fine for camp.
Like Cousins was with the Falcons, Tagovailoa was a cap casualty with the Dolphins, despite being owed tens of millions of dollars, and Tua signed with Atlanta in March. The franchise wasn't about to give up on Penix, the No. 8 overall pick in the 2024 draft, and certainly wasn't going into the offseason with a rehabbing Penix and Siemian as the only two legit QB options.
Because Tagovailoa is owed $54 million from Miami this year, he signed only a one-year, $1.3 million deal with Atlanta to compete for the top job, and he's the -120 favorite to be the Week 1 guy. Obviously it helped Tua that the Falcons made a coaching change, as the offensive scheme is entirely new to both he and Penix. Stefanski has long directed an attack that relies on timely release and accuracy, saying that accuracy is the "most important trait" for a quarterback.
"There is an innate ability, and all of our quarterbacks have this, to be able to let the ball go and it's going to where you want it to go," said Stefanski. "Tua just in his career, as we've seen, just has that innate, God-given ability."
Since he became a full-time starter in 2021, Tagovailoa's completion percentage of 68.6 ranks third among NFL signal-callers and second among those who have appeared in at least 50 games. He led the league with a 72.9% rate during the 2024 season.
Tua struggles when facing pressure and in cold-weather outdoor games. He won't have the latter problem in Atlanta. And Tua already has the edge, having taken all the first-team reps at OTAs last week with Siemian taking second team.
Both Tagovailoa and Penix are +3500 to win NFL Comeback Player of the Year. Whichever one wins the job has some nice skill position talent, led by tailback Bijan Robinson (+800 for Offensive Player of the Year), wideout Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts. In his first season as Browns head coach in 2020, Stefanski snapped what at the time was the NFL's longest playoff drought. Atlanta's current eight-season drought is second-longest active.
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Barring injury, I think Tagovailoa is the Week 1 guy. The current front office/coaching staff has no ties to Penix, who obviously is at a disadvantage not being 100% yet from that knee injury. Regardless, I'd expect to see a QB taken with the team's 2027 first-round pick.
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