BALTIMORE -- The Falcons chose not to play a majority of their would-be starters in their 13-12 loss to the Baltimore Ravens Saturday. You can check out Terrin Waack's full list of players who did not dress in the game in her postgame recap. This decision wasn't a surprise seeing as the Falcons did something similar in their first preseason game against Miami last week.
What was a surprise, though, was the fact that rookie quarterback Michael Penix Jr. did not dress at all. This came on the same day Chicago ran out fellow-rookies Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze for an entire half in its own preseason game. It was a decision met with a few questions from the outside looking in.
However, according to head coach Raheem Morris, the Falcons felt they made the right decision to keep nearly 40 players on the sideline Saturday, including Penix.
He went on to say postgame that the decision to keep Penix off the field stemmed from his performance in the first preseason game and in practices since.
"It was all about that. Last week we wanted to get him out there and get a feel for what he was in a live game, which we kind of already knew," Morris said. "We wanted to see him be able to answer questions, talk about it on the sideline, go out there and execute, make mistakes and know what to do. ... We saw enough last week of Michael Penix in the live stuff and now we had the chance to mitigate him, and in practice, you know, we give him a bunch of live stuff in practice that you do everything that you would do in a game other than get hit."
In the Falcons' first preseason game in Miami, Penix was given five series of live work. By the end of his evening, Penix had connected on nine of his 16 passes for 104 passing yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions. That, Morris said, was enough for the Falcons to feel they could keep him out of the pocket in Baltimore and, quite possibly, beyond.
"We feel really good with where we're at with Michael," Morris said. "... Mike showed us, last week, enough that we don't have to play him in the preseason."
