On the first play of his first NFL start, Michael Penix Jr. made a statement... on a medium-length incompletion intended for Ray Ray McCloud.

It wasn't that Penix failed to connect with McCloud, even if the throw was a dart to the sideline that sliced through coverage to hit its target in the chest. That part only mattered in the box score. It's that Atlanta had a quarterback it could trust to throw on the run.

The Falcons' first play of the day was a play-action bootleg -- the exact kind of play Atlanta couldn't run with Kirk Cousins behind center.

Cousins, the $180 million quarterback signed to pull the Falcons from a spiral of mediocrity, arrived as a 36-year-old man coming off a torn Achilles and spent more than two thirds of the 2024 season playing like one. His passing velocity dipped. His mobility, never a headline on his resume in the first place, had effectively been drained.

This all led to very predictable results. Cousins wasn't just prone to pressure, his inability to drop back effectively ripped pages from Atlanta's playbook. His play-action rate cratered. He threw rushed passes into tighter windows than any other time in his NFL career. Between Week 10 and Week 15 he threw one touchdown pass and nine interceptions. This brought Penix -- the surprising eighth overall pick, selected two months after Cousins's signing -- up from backup to QB1.

Penix wasn't perfect, but he soared over a nearly subterranean bar against an overmatched opponent.

The Falcons didn't reinvent their playbook around Penix. The shotgun snaps remained. He wasn't given a directive to cut and run when pressured like fellow rookie Caleb Williams was given after Thomas Brown took over as the Chicago Bears' interim offensive coordinator. He stood in the pocket and delivered clean passes through static, zipping the ball downfield on his best reads.

Cousins's lack of mobility led to less time in the pocket, even against defenses that blitzed him less than ever (because they knew they just needed one guy to breach the pocket to create a problem). But when third-and-long situations made it easy and obvious to bring an extra pass rusher or two, things fell apart.

Cousins's expected points added (EPA) per dropback dropped from neutral to negative when blitzed. In the five-game stretch that effectively closed the books on his Atlanta tenure, the Falcons converted 23 of 67 third downs -- a 34.3 percent conversion rate roughly on par with the New England Patriots' woeful offense this fall (fourth-worst in the NFL).

Penix, on the other hand, showed more comfort in the face of pressure.

Granted, the lift was light. The opponent was Drew Lock and the New York Giants. Their 0.161 EPA/play allowed on dropbacks is fourth worst in the NFL. Ultimately, the box score will suggest Penix wasn't much of an upgrade over the veteran he's chasing out of Georgia. He finished with 18 completions on 27 attempts for 202 yards. He didn't throw a single touchdown.

This fails to reflect his impact. Penix was stung by drops and pressure early -- the kind of influence that could have derailed his debut. He didn't panic. He ran when asked. He hung in the pocket when the play called for it. He threw an interception that aggressively was not his fault.

Penix made play action dropbacks look effortless instead of painful. He brought designed rollouts back to the playbook. He gave Atlanta an emotion other than anxiety on out-breaking routes to the sideline. He helped convert eight of 14 third down opportunities (57 percent).

He completed five of eight throws that traveled at least 10 yards downfield. Cousins, comparatively, had completed only 52 percent of such throws this season.

At face value, none of this is especially impressive. But Penix did exactly what he was tasked with doing. His play inspired hope. He may lower the floor for this offense against a better opponent, but he also raises the ceiling in a meaningful way.

With only two weeks left to close the gap on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the race for the NFC South title, Penix's competence was a vital sign of life. The 2024 Falcons have been a sine wave, starting low, rising high, diving back into the depths and now, potentially, emerging once more. There's danger in overreacting to how *anyone* looks against the Giants, but the lesson here won't be defined by touchdown passes or even the final score.

It's that the Falcons have a quarterback they can trust with run-pass options, play-action fakes, rollouts and tough throws to the sideline. Instead of walking on eggshells thanks to Cousins's limitations, they can stomp around and figure out what's going to work for their young quarterback. He'll have his share of rookie mistakes incoming, but Week 16 reflected why swapping out Cousins for Penix was the right decision.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Michael Penix Jr. did everything the Falcons couldn't get from Kirk Cousins