Many young quarterbacks get a buffer zone. A year zero, a mulligan — call it what you want, but most QBs drafted inside the top 10 head to teams that either are trying simply not to be terrible anymore or are at the start of being terrible for a while.
Michael Penix Jr. and J.J. McCarthy are, apparently, not most quarterbacks.
After getting just three starts as a rookie, Penix entered his second season as the Falcons’ unquestioned starter. Atlanta has divisional title hopes and, just as importantly, organizational changes could loom if 2025 doesn’t go the way the Falcons want.
McCarthy’s situation is even more intense. After missing all of 2024 with a knee injury, the QB the Vikings traded up to draft at No. 10 (two spots behind Penix) took over for a team that went 14-3 last year, has the best receiver on the planet and holds Super Bowl aspirations.
On Sunday night, the two quarterbacks who played for a college national title in 2023 will meet for the first time in the NFL. Let’s dive into both players ahead of a big primetime matchup.
Before we get into how Penix looked in his first start of 2025 against Tampa Bay, let’s go back and examine some of his strengths and weaknesses coming out of Washington.
Penix’s best attribute in school was his deep ball. Both his accuracy and aggression on vertical routes was as good as, or better than, any of his peers in the talented 2024 QB class. He had little trouble properly identifying fronts and coverages, which allowed him to get rid of the ball quicker than most.
As much as anything, though, Penix was known as a gamer. He took chances and made his share of mistakes, but he also generally remained calm in crunch time and played every game through the final whistle, no matter what.
The biggest concerns with Penix’s game were about his injury history, inconsistent ball placement due to a slightly stiff lower body and a noted hesitancy to attack the middle of the field with confidence.
In limited action last season, Penix’s downfield aggression definitely showed up — he ranked second among all NFL starting quarterbacks with 54.3 percent of his targets having a depth at or beyond the first-down marker (10.2 air yards per attempt), and he continued to get rid of the ball quickly (average time to throw: 2.58 seconds).
But Penix also continued to show hesitancy over the middle of the field — just 36.7 percent of his attempts came between the numbers (only Justin Fields had a lower number). Penix was also one of the NFL’s least accurate starters last season, finishing with an off-target rate of 13.3 percent (40th among 46 qualifiers).
That was then, however. Penix entered training camp as Atlanta’s unquestioned starter and was able to prep with the full support of the organization. And though his 2025 debut against the Bucs was hardly perfect, it’s obvious Penix’s confidence and comfort with everything around him are much improved.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the first thing that jumped out with Penix last week was how quickly he got rid of the football. At times, it was almost too quickly, as he was still guilty of throwing without really looking. However, he seemed to have a strong grasp of what OC Zac Robinson and pass game coordinator T.J. Yates were trying to accomplish. Only five starters got rid of the ball faster than Penix last week (2.46 seconds), and his accuracy number (7.1 percent off-target) on 42 attempts was improved.
Here is a great example of Penix playing fast while under pressure:
He does a good job of identifying man coverage before the snap and wastes zero time taking the inside corner route. Despite having pressure right in his face as he throws, Penix still has the arm strength to get the ball out on time — and even gives his receiver a chance to turn upfield for extra yards.
Penix was also able to fit a few quick slants into some very tight windows and generally did a good job all game of taking free yards based off pre-snap coverage looks. He threw on the first read a lot. Plenty of that was called, but Penix did begin to fall in love with the quick game a bit much, which left some yards on the field as a result.
On the play above, Atlanta is working a bunch concept to the field side with a go route to the boundary, just outside the red zone. Penix’s first read here is to check the inside linebacker and the quick-stop route. Before the snap, this looks like a potential six-man pressure with a two-high shell — and when that linebacker drops and floats away from the stop route, that’s where Penix moves his eyes.
Only this isn’t a two-high coverage. When the safety drives on the stop route, Penix freezes and stalls his processing. He never gets through the progression and can’t get his eyes to the backside go route that’s open for a touchdown. The pocket breaks down quickly, and Penix does a good job just getting out of there, but we’ve seen him rip the ball against that type of pressure.
Had he gotten his eyes where they needed to be, this would have been a big play — or at least given Atlanta a chance at one.
Penix only flirted with real trouble twice in this game. Both instances were the result of him throwing the ball too quickly. One came just outside the red zone and could’ve been the result of a miscommunication, as Penix attempted to throw what looked like an out route to Drake London — who instead ran a stop route — and the ball was nearly picked.
The Falcons have to love that Penix is confident in what he’s seeing before the snap, but the young QB also has to remember how much coverage can morph at this level and slow down just a hair. The other gripe from Week 1 is that, again, most of Penix’s work happened outside the numbers. Some of that appeared by design, but that’s going to catch up with the offense over time.
In general, though, Penix played winning football against Tampa Bay. He didn’t turn the ball over plus delivered a gutsy fourth-down scramble to set up his own go-ahead touchdown run late in the fourth quarter. His chemistry with London should improve, and his understanding of the offense — even if it results in checkdowns to elite talent such as Bijan Robinson — is on the right track.
McCarthy ranked higher than Penix on many final draft boards in 2024. However, the way this worked out might’ve been ideal for all parties — especially the Vikings, because the fit between McCarthy and Kevin O’Connell was right there with the Jayden Daniels-Kliff Kingsbury pairing as the best QB/team top-10 match since Joe Burrow and Zac Taylor.
McCarthy can be a roller coaster. He’s not afraid to take chances over the middle or step into throws against pressure. He does not like to take sacks and will force difficult throws because he feels like it. Purely as a player, McCarthy, in 100 different ways, is a more athletic version of Jim Harbaugh.
And when your quarterback’s tendency to buck like a bronco can be the very thing that helps create big plays, your head coach needs to understand when to keep the saddle on and when to take it off.
O’Connell might be the best in the NFL at this. His ability to put himself in his quarterback’s shoes and find ways to build game plans around the areas in which that player excels is top-notch. We saw this on display plenty in Week 1. McCarthy was so much better at Michigan throwing on the run to his right than his left. So when Minnesota used that action Monday, most of it was to its QB’s right.
McCarthy wasn’t overloaded. The plan was manageable without being stale.
That said, McCarthy did show some hesitancy to rip the ball on a few opportunities early. Chicago did a nice job of forcing him to sit and read coverage, which seemed to cause him a few hiccups.
Here’s an early third down that resulted in Minnesota being bailed out by pass interference flag. But this might have been a big play without the penalty had McCarthy been willing to throw the ball over the middle to Justin Jefferson. That route is hardly wide open when Jefferson crosses the 40 — but it’s Jefferson. Give him a chance to make you look great, and he usually does.
The pick six McCarthy threw was a pretty simple example of a young quarterback staring down a receiver on a basic two-man route concept. The corner read it the whole way, undercut an underthrown ball and walked in for a score. At that point, McCarthy’s first regular-season game looked like a mess. Then, in the fourth quarter, he went 6-for-8 passing for 87 yards and two touchdowns plus a third TD on the ground.
One of McCarthy’s biggest pre-draft positives was his attitude. In general, McCarthy was very good after mistakes in college, mentally getting rid of bad throws as quickly as a great baseball closer moves on from a blown save. And if a defense gives him enough chances to make up for one, he usually does.
This is a big-time courage throw. The Vikings get the coverage they want here, Jefferson breaks open and McCarthy sees it. He doesn’t short stride this ball or duck and spin out. He looks right down the barrel of 6-foot-7, 289-pound Tanoh Kpassagnon and drives the ball about the same way he would if no one was near him.
This is also part of why teammates loved playing with McCarthy in college — his toughness when called upon almost never came up short. When your QB stands in there, takes a hit and makes a big play, it ups the ante for the rest of the huddle.
And when he steps into one like this near the red zone, that same huddle starts to believe.
Remember the earlier clip of McCarthy not hanging in to take a chance on a tight-window throw to Jefferson? Later in the same game, when it really mattered, McCarthy did exactly what the moment called for.
We could say the same thing about his other touchdown pass, the wheel route to Aaron Jones, when he had two open receivers and decided to go for the deeper one.
McCarthy — like Penix — rarely passes up those opportunities.
To some degree, Penix and McCarthy each is still a bit of a mystery. Combined, they’ve made five NFL starts — and have a long way to go.
This could be a nervous ride at times for their teams, at least for the first half of the season. They’re going to make mistakes. Penix needs to be more confident over the middle; McCarthy must continue to adjust to the speed of NFL defenders; both need to be more consistent with processing.
However, with the benefit of hindsight, Minnesota and Atlanta appear to have made wise decisions when it comes to football IQ and competitive toughness. Both of these quarterbacks are fighters.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise if Sunday night’s game is the first of many head-to-head exciting battles between these two over the next decade or so.
(Photos: Kevin C. Cox, Michael Reaves / Getty Images)