The Atlanta Falcons made the most shocking move of the NFL Draft on Thursday night when they chose to select Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the No. 8 overall pick just weeks after signing veteran Kirk Cousins to a four-year contract worth more than $100 million. It was a pretty controversial move, but head coach Raheem Morris defended the choice.
During his press conference following the selection, the new Atlanta Falcons head coach explained that the decision to select Michael Penix Jr. was to set them up for the future, given that the team does not expect to have a top-10 pick at any point in the next several years to be able to acquire another quarterback.
“It’s pretty simple for us: When you get Kirk Cousins, and you talk about short-term winning and talk about winning right now, which we know we will be in a position to do, we won’t have the ability to be picking this high again with the guy that we got,” coach Raheem Morris said. “We were lucky enough to watch Matt Ryan play 14 years . . . with the Atlanta Falcons. At some point, you’ve got to find a way to have that succession plan in place. It just so happened it presented itself tonight.”
It’s a rather unorthodox approach when the Falcons could have used that first-round pick to bring in more talent to help the team now, but we’ll have to see how it works out for them in the long run.