Tua doing individual drills at Thursday’s practice

It was a rough day for Tagovailoa. The Falcons quarterback was greeted by booes in his former home stadium this evening. He maintained his relatively low level of play, throwing short and, at one point, fumbling a snap, which was recovered by a Dolphins defender. It was not his worst showing, but it is unlikely to earn him the starting job either.

Tua Tagovailoa will start versus his old team. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said yesterday that Tua’s horrid play throughout training camp and the preseason has made it impossible for the team to name him the Week 1 starter. Penix finally joined 11-on-11 drills this week, but his absence from the preseason contest suggests the team isn’t quite ready to put him in harm’s way. The matchup with Miami will be Tua’s final shot at winning the job.

Rarely do you see a national reporter talk about a quarterback in these kinds of black-and-white terms as far as how well they’re playing, so it’s an alarming sign for Tagovailoa’s fantasy value. “Not just in the preseason game, but it sounds like practice as well,” Rapoport says while adding that this is “Michael Penix’s job for the taking.” Superflex fantasy managers wishing to speculate on the Falcons quarterback job would probably be best served pivoting to Penix at the moment.

Three weeks ahead of the opening of the regular season, Stefanski seems no closer to naming a starting QB than he was at the start of training camp. Michael Penix, recovering from a 2025 ACL injury, made his return to 11-on-11 practice Monday while Tua Tagovailoa continued to struggled. “I can’t speculate on those types of things,” Stefanski said. “I want to really stay in today with Mike and see how he does in practice. I really have to stay in the moment with this one. Let’s see how he feels after today.” Penix on Monday completed four of his eight pass attempts in 11-on-11 drills while facing “simulated pressure.” Two of his passes came up “noticeably short,” per The Athletic’s Josh Kendall.

Penix was recently cleared for 11-on-11 practice and will participate in 11-on-11s on Monday. The third-year signal-caller has been working his way back from a torn ACL he suffered in November and will now have a few weeks to compete with Tagovailoa for the starting job. While it seems highly unlikely that Penix would win the QB1 job to start the season after being limited for most of camp, Tagovailoa hasn’t had the strongest of camps. Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show earlier, Adam Schefter said Tagovailoa “hasn’t run away” with the competition, suggesting a path could be open for Penix to win the job. We’ll see how these next few weeks unfold, but it’s possible the Falcons will delay naming a QB1 until it’s time to begin preparing for Week 1’s game against the Steelers.

It has been assumed that Tua Tagovailoa would be under center when games begin to count in two weeks, largely due to the health of Penix. Recent weeks have given some pause to that expectation considering the struggles of Tagovailoa and increasing health of Penix, with the current quarterback situation now much more up in the air as the team inches closer to the regular season. Penix now gains clearance to participate in 11-on-11 practices, a massive milestone in his recovery from a torn ACL suffered in November. The Falcons appear to be headed towards a situation in which they are one of the final teams to announce their Week 1 starting quarterback, although it could still fall on Tagovailoa’s shoulders out of necessity.

Stefanski said the starters will get a series or about 10 plays, depending on what happens first. He declined to name a Week 1 starter. Michael Penix has not participated in team drills yet and Stefanski confirmed that he would not do so in joint practices with the Colts next week. The lack of practice reps likely means Penix is slated for backup duties to open the year, even if Stefanski isn’t willing to make that call just yet.

After missing the early part of training camp, Tua Tagovailoa has been back practicing with the team and reportedly turned in a solid session on Sunday, which was cut short by lightning. Michael Penix, who is still waiting to be fully cleared to return from the torn ACL that ended his 2025 campaign. The third-year signal-caller has been practicing in a limited capacity and said in late July that it might be “another four weeks” before he moves on to the next stage in his recovery. Regardless of what Stefanski says about naming his Week 1 QB, until Penix is officially cleared for full football activities, Tagovailoa feels like a safe bet to open the year as the starter.

This has been sort of the working assumption for a while as Tagovailoa is taking first-team reps while Michael Penix hasn’t been cleared for full-contact work yet. Tagovalioa remained limited with a back injury today in camp, but obviously if there’s no healthy Penix, there can be no competition.

Friday marked the first time Tagovailoa has had a chance to speak publicly with the media since training camp began. He hasn’t had a chance to practice in full with the team since camp opened, and said he isn’t sure when he will be a full participant, but also added that if this were a game week, he would likely be able to play. Tagovailoa has been sidelined since the start of camp with what has been reported as a “tight back” that flared up last week. It’s an issue he has never had to deal with before, per Tagovailoa, who said he believes the decision to sideline him early on is “just a precaution thing.” Tagovailoa’s quotes on Friday sound like those of a player who should be on the field sooner rather than later, but we’ll continue to provide updates on this situation until he is back in full capacity.