All the stats suggest Michael Penix Jr. can be the Falcons franchise quarterback

Michael Penix Jr. has looked every bit a franchise quarterback for the Falcons this year, and every metric backs it up.

His completion percentage has risen seven points under Tommy Rees, sitting at 66.7% for the season. That’s a top-10 mark in the league, tied with Josh Allen and right around quarterbacks like Matthew Stafford and Brock Purdy — pretty good company to keep.

Penix also ranks top 10 in QBR, and his 109.1 passer rating is good for fourth in the league among quarterbacks with at least five starts this season.

But perhaps the most impressive stat of all: Penix has thrown just one interception all season, which, ironically, came on his first drive back from a torn ACL. He almost never puts the ball in harm’s way, with an interception-worthy throw rate of just 2% — the eighth-best mark in the entire league.

Pick a metric, go to the top 10, and you’ll probably find Michael Penix Jr. That’s how good he’s been through his first five starts in 2026, and it’s why the Falcons are 3-2 when he starts — a record that should be 4-1 if not for the collapse against the Ravens.

Are there flaws in Penix’s game? Absolutely. There are some throws — easy completions in critical situations — he has to make more consistently. But those kinds of flaws are the fixable kind. It would be far more worrying if he couldn’t help but throw a meatball over the middle at least once a game.

It’s also important to add context to what Penix has done through five games. This is a young man coming off a torn ACL and learning an entirely new offense for the first time. That’s not an easy situation for any quarterback to navigate, let alone someone who entered the year with less than a season’s worth of starts under his belt.

The sample size remains too small to crown Penix just yet, and the injury concerns aren’t going away anytime soon. That will always be the biggest hurdle he has to clear. But with each passing performance, he’s proving he can be the Falcons’ long-term answer at quarterback — as long as he can stay on the field.

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Photo: IMAGO / Icon Sportswire