{"id":886744,"date":"2026-09-07T12:56:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T12:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/886744\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T12:56:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T12:56:29","slug":"report-falcons-name-tua-tagovailoa-starter-vs-steelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/886744\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Falcons name Tua Tagovailoa starter vs. Steelers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tua Tagovailoa will start on Sunday in the Falcons&#8217; first regular-season game against the Steelers, ESPN&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AdamSchefter\/status\/2096934088934363297?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">Adam Schefter reported<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Tagovailoa had a rough pre-season, but with projected starter Michael Penix Jr. coming off a torn ACL, the Falcons have tapped the veteran for the season opener.<\/p>\n<p>Penix was cleared for 11-on-11 work on Aug. 22.<\/p>\n<p>In a 17-12 pre-season loss in Miami to his former team on Aug. 29, Tagovailoa was booed as he took the field and finished 7-of-8 for 95 yards while playing three series. He was replaced in that game by Cooper Rush, who went 13-of-18 for 106 yards and a touchdown. <\/p>\n<p>Tagovailoa, who signed a one-year deal with the Falcons on the off-season, was the Dolphins&#8217; starter for over five seasons but was released in a move that provided both the player and team with a fresh start. Miami is on the hook for a $99 million dead-cap hit split over the next two seasons, the largest in NFL history.<\/p>\n<p>In 14 games last season, Tagovailoa passed for 2,660 yards, 20 touchdowns and 15 interceptions to post an 88.5 quarterback rating. <\/p>\n<p>&#8211;with files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tua Tagovailoa will start on Sunday in the Falcons&#8217; first regular-season game against the Steelers, ESPN&#8217;s Adam Schefter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-886744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}