Oct 19, 2025; Santa Clara, California, USA; Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. (9) runs with the ball during the first quarter against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

The Atlanta Falcons may not be able to reach their full potential this season, but them's the breaks when you're breaking in a young quarterback.

While second-year quarterback Michael Penix Jr. isn't the only reason the team has struggled to maintain consistency in a roller coaster of a 2025 campaign, he's the living embodiment of where the franchise is at present. He's one of the most inconsistent quarterbacks playing right now, and his team follows suit with how it plays.

Penix is tremendous on some plays and tanks others, his howitzer of an arm capable of making any throw on the field and his scattershot accuracy leaves some plays in a bewildering ball sprayed to the turf. He's only nine games into his career, mind you, but he's also not the quarterback you can fully rely on right now to make a playoff push.

When the Falcons swapped out veteran Kirk Cousins for Penix last December, they reversed the immediate trajectory of the franchise from pressing contention with an older roster to a slower walk to success with a young quarterback. Cousins was banged up and playing poorly, and Penix gave the team a spark of life in his three 2024 starts that hinted an incredibly bright future in Atlanta. In 2025, that light has dimmed a bit because the initial rookie flashes in the NFL usually hit a wall once opposing teams get film and start to assess a player's weaknesses.

This season, teams are more likely to make Penix uncomfortable in the pocket with blitzes like in the San Francisco 49ers game on Sunday night. Penix was an abysmal 0-for-9 in passing when under pressure against San Fran. When he had a clean pocket, he went 21-for-29 with 241 yards and a touchdown. A young quarterback playing poorly with defenders in his face on the road isn't cause for alarm, but it does show where his growing pains are.

CBS' Sports JP Acosta astutely compared Penix and the 2025 Falcons offense to a streaky NBA three-point shooter, capable of going off some weeks and going cold in others. Penix has to get in rhythm to find his footing in the passing game, and his offensive line has to keep him upright for that to happen. He was under duress for most of the 49ers game after playing behind relatively clean pockets in wins against the Washington Commanders and Buffalo Bills. The results against Washington and Buffalo were largely encouraging. The results in the Bay weren't.

The inconsistency goes past Penix on offense. Offensive coordinator Zac Robinson has been up and down this season, calling sharp games some weeks and succumbing to confusing decisions in others. Sunday's game saw his offense struggle mightily with the scheme that 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh installed. The ballyhooed run game led by an Offensive Player of the Year candidate in running back Bijan Robinson stalled, and the passing game couldn't find any sustained success. A 49ers defender basically admitted to knowing what was coming from Atlanta on a pivotal fourth-down stop late in the fourth quarter. Shaky results in the trenches and in coaching don't help a young quarterback in a hostile road environment. They can bring out the quarterback's worst tendencies.

Penix's hesitancy to throw to the middle of the field and his uneven accuracy when under duress do not pair well with defenses taking away the deep ball that he thrived on at Washington and in his first NFL starts. When Penix is nailing sideline passes with a clean pocket, he's as lethal as any young quarterback in the NFL.

When he's losing his signature poise, his feet get sloppy in the pocket and he's rushing his passes with defenders in his face, he's bound to make some pretty ugly mistakes. Heck, he may make some ugly mistakes even when things are going well because he's not played much in the NFL. When the pocket is collapsing around him, he's not yet to a point where he can constantly mitigate negative plays through quick decisions with his arm and legs. Life in the NFL is not kind to young quarterbacks, and it hasn't been kind to Penix this season. It's fair to see a little regression in his game from where he was last season, but it's also fair to see regression in most young quarterbacks as they adapt.

Our Christian D'Andrea made a nice read of Penix after the team's Week 4 win over the Commanders, and it holds true after the Week 7 loss to the 49ers.

"What is Michael Penix Jr.? He's an undeniably talented quarterback still figuring out his processing power behind the line of scrimmage," D'Andrea wrote. "He's the guy who can pilot Atlanta to wins against quarterbacks who weren't starters a year ago ([Minnesota Vikings' J.J.] McCarthy, [Commanders'] Marcus Mariota) but crumble into dust against a forgettable Panthers team. He's a quarterback you can trust to make the right throws downfield until you can't. All that makes him a wildly entertaining quarterback for a wildly entertaining team. Will it make him the franchise quarterback the Falcons badly need? It's still too soon to tell."

It still is too early to gauge what Penix will be out of his first nine starts, but early trends are starting to solidify themselves. He's better at home than he is on the road, he's better when his run game and offensive line are clicking and he's better throwing to the spots of the field where he's historically found the most success.

Does that mean the Falcons should be worried? By no means. On top of this just being normal terrain for young quarterbacks in general, veteran quarterbacks like Baker Mayfield, Geno Smith, Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones and, heck, even Mac Jones and Carson Wentz at times this season, have recently upended the way we look at the long arc of quarterback development. Quarterbacks can always work on their flaws and get better, even multiple seasons into their careers. A quarterback as talented as Penix can and should get as much time as needed to reach his best self, and that best self might not even emerge until years from now. It's okay if he's not always good right now.

However, that's a dual-edged sword for the Falcons this season. Yes, Penix may eventually be who the team drafted one day, but he's not that player at present. He's not taking the league by storm in his first full season of starting. Some games, he's playing fairly well. Some games, he's playing pretty poorly. He's an uneven, unfinished product with highs and lows. The Falcons will go as far as he goes this season, and that might not be far enough to break a seven-season playoff drought. That's the risk of playing a young quarterback; the results aren't always instant.

Benching Penix during his struggles for Cousins might feel good for about five minutes for begrudged Falcons fans tired of missing the postseason. However, sacrificing a playoff berth for Penix's longterm development is probably a concession the franchise makes right now as it tries to find quarterback stability in a post-Matt Ryan world. Some ugly Penix games will probably be necessary for his grander growth, but it may burn the Falcons in the meantime.

Such is life with a "redshirt freshman" like Penix. This is basically his first NFL season, and those typically don't go as well for rookie quarterbacks as it does for veterans. He didn't play as much in college as you'd expect for the years he spent in that level, so he deserves as much grace in his adaptation to the NFL as his peers. One day, the Falcons may look back at 2025 as an important step in the road to finding the franchise quarterback. Maybe Penix's development doesn't go as hoped, and some of his bad habits stick around longer than you'd like. There are no guarantees to how a quarterback performs in the NFL, but you can bank on it not always being pretty at first.

There's no reason to fret about young quarterbacks like Penix taking some lumps on the road to a better self, but it's also really hard to trust the teams they play for until those quarterbacks find more consistency. That makes the 2025 Falcons a hard team to believe in for postseason promise, but it leaves open the door to believe in the future.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Should the Falcons be worried about Michael Penix Jr.'s inconsistencies?

Reporting by Cory Woodroof, For The Win / For The Win

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