Falcons name Tua Tagovailoa starting quarterback to begin season

The Atlanta Falcons have named Tua Tagovailoa their starting quarterback, ending the NFL’s most protracted quarterback competition at least for now.

Tagovailoa, 28, will be making his 77th regular season start when the Falcons take on the Steelers in Pittsburgh on Sunday. He came to Atlanta on a one-year contract for the veteran minimum salary ($1.2 million) this offseason after six years in Miami, where he made the Pro Bowl in 2023 but was released two seasons later despite a dead cap hit of nearly $100 million to the Dolphins.

Tagovailoa beat out Michael Penix Jr., the Falcons’ No. 8 pick in 2024, for the starting job, but Penix still is expected to have a chance to overtake Tagovailoa at some point this season. Penix, 26, suffered a torn ACL in Week 11 last year and was only cleared for 11-on-11 practice on Aug. 24.

Tagovailoa missed the first week of training camp with back spasms and then struggled in the early weeks of practice, but Atlanta’s coaches have been consistently optimistic about his progress.

“As you get through camp, you start to hone in on what each quarterback does well, and you want to devise the offense in terms of how they play and what suits their eye,” offensive coordinator Tommy Rees said, adding of Tagovailoa, “he’s taking a lot of ownership in the operations part of the offense. We’ve asked him to do a lot of stuff he really hasn’t done in his career.”

The decision to go with Tagovailoa will limit Atlanta’s ability to throw the ball downfield because of his relative lack of arm strength compared to Penix. But Tagovailoa has been the much more accurate of the two quarterbacks throughout his career with a 68 percent career completion percentage.

“When things are clean, he’s as accurate as they get,” Rees said.

The Falcons will still be highly incentivized to start Penix at some point this season because he is halfway through his rookie contract, and the team has not decided yet whether to pick up the fifth-year option that would cover the 2028 season.