Michel Penix Jr. made his first NFL begin on Sunday for the Atlanta Falcons in opposition to the New York Giants.
It was a profitable debut for the previous College of Washington star who the Giants had a chance to draft this previous April. The Giants selected LSU huge receiver Malik Nabers with the sixth decide. Two spots later, the Falcons stunned everybody by taking Penix.
That they had just lately inked veteran Kirk Cousins to an enormous free agent deal and Atlanta taking a quarterback that early within the draft was not on many consultants’ bingo playing cards.
Nobody complained on the time that the Giants took Nabers over Penix and nobody is moaning about it now. Nabers has had a record-breaking yr for the Giants however on Sunday, Penix made it clear that the Falcons might have gotten the higher of the state of affairs for each the brief and the long run.
The Giants nonetheless want a quarterback. They rolled the cube on Daniel Jones in 2019 and misplaced. Within the six years they have been attempting to make issues work with Jones, they watched a river of quarterback expertise move by them within the draft whereas they targeting different wants.
Justin Herbert, Tua Tagovailoa, Jalen Hurts, Brock Purdy, Bo Nix and Penix might have all been Giants had the workforce realized sooner that Jones was not the long-term reply.
That choice could be tied again to the workforce’s earlier basic supervisor, Dave Gettleman. The Giants fell in love with Jones, locked themselves into him, and out of the various higher choices to come back.
Gettleman was additionally the person who determined to pick operating again Saquon Barkley second general within the 2018 NFL draft bypassing such expertise as Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Sam Darnold.
Simply this season alone, the Giants have been schooled by Hurts, Darnold, Jackson, and now Penix.
Gettleman referred to as Barkley a “gold jacket” man who was “touched by the hand of God.” He additionally in contrast him to Barry Sanders, which was an ideal comp as Sanders was an excellent participant on a nasty workforce most of his profession and by no means received something.
Whereas some folks would possibly imagine that Barkley was a strong decide, he wasn’t proper for a rebuilding workforce. As we’ve acknowledged earlier than, he’s the ultimate piece to a puzzle, not the primary one. That’s why he’s on a Corridor of Fame trajectory with the first-place Philadelphia Eagles proper now.
The Giants will possible be deciding on first within the 2025 NFL draft and deservedly so. They are going to have their decide of quarterbacks and possibly lastly get this trainwreck of a franchise circled.
