New Atlanta Falcons quarterback Tua Tagovailoa hopes he can provide a veteran voice to help Michael Penix Jr., but he also believes he could take Penix’s job.
“Competition is just a thing in the NFL. I am no stranger to competition,” Tagovailoa said Tuesday as he met with the Atlanta media for the first time since signing with the Falcons earlier this month. “I would say competition is just going to be there, and competition enhances the play of everyone. You either are a competitor or you’re not. You don’t go from being a competitor to saying, ‘Ah, just let me relax a little bit.’ I just don’t think that’s how it works.”
Tagovailoa, 28, comes to Atlanta after six years in Miami, where he was the No. 5 pick in the 2020 draft and finished with a 44-32 regular-season record as a starter and a loss in his only playoff appearance. Penix, 25, who is 4-8 in 12 career starts after being drafted eighth overall by Atlanta in 2024, suffered a season-ending ACL tear in Week 11 last year and will be limited through much of the team’s offseason work.
“Whatever I can do to help Mike’s game will help me,” Tagovailoa said. “I’m not looking at it as, ‘You do your thing, I’m going to compete over here.’ It’s the collection of what’s best for the team, not just the individual. I’m going to do all I can to help him with anything he needs, and by doing that, I hope it enhances the team and his game and mine.”
Tagovailoa will get the opportunity to compete with Penix for the starting job, Falcons general manager Ian Cunningham said earlier this month after signing Tagovailoa to a one-year, $1.2 million deal.
“Everybody, not just those two, is coming in to compete,” Cunningham said. “There are no starters right now. We are excited to have Tua, but we’re excited to have all the players we were able to get (in free agency).”
The Falcons are paying Tagovailoa the league minimum because the Dolphins will be paying him more than $50 million this season to satisfy the guarantees of a massive 2024 contract extension he signed.
Miami gave the Hawaii native a four-year deal worth a potential $212.4 million after a 2023 season in which he passed for a career-high 4,624 yards and 29 touchdowns and finished third in the league in EPA per dropback (0.15). However, Tagovailoa is 12-13 as a starter in the last two years, and he finished 30th in the league in EPA per dropback (minus-0.01) and threw a career-worst 15 interceptions last season. The Dolphins accrued $99 million in a dead cap hit by releasing Tagovailoa.
“My play wasn’t up to the standard of the way I’ve been playing football,” he said. “Just got to play better football. There’s no way to sugarcoat that.”
Tagovailoa made headlines in October after publicly voicing his frustrations about Dolphins teammates not showing up for players-only meetings. He later apologized for those comments, which then-Miami head coach Mike McDaniel called “misguided.”
The Falcons also plan to sign veteran free-agent quarterback Trevor Siemian, who is 15-18 in 33 career starts with the Broncos, Jets, Saints and Bears, according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, and running back Brian Robinson Jr., who has 2,729 yards and 17 touchdowns in four seasons spent in Washington and San Francisco, according to a team source.
The potential of Atlanta’s offense is one of the reasons Tagovailoa chose the team in free agency, he said.
“You’ve got a good line, you’ve got Kyle Pitts, you’ve got Bijan Robinson, you’ve got Drake London. I’m excited to be able to use those weapons in OTAs and be able to work with these guys,” he said. “I got to spend some time talking with (offensive coordinator Tommy Rees and head coach Kevin Stefanski) about the offense. They have shared some things that it won’t be as adamant as the way we would motion in Miami. There is going to be a reason for everything we do.”
Tagovailoa has missed eight games in the last four seasons due to concussions and has suffered four documented concussions, one at the University of Alabama and three in the NFL. But he said Tuesday that he’s comfortable with his current health.
“The game of football will always entail physicality,” he said. “You can never foreshadow what the future is going to look like in terms of your health, whether it’s an ankle, a hand injury or a concussion. In terms of health, I went through all the protocols of what I needed to do for the Falcons, and everything came out good.
“You either love it, or you don’t. You either love the game, or you don’t. You know the challenges that are ahead in terms of playing the sport with injuries.”
Tagovailoa declined to predict what his future with the Falcons might hold beyond the 2026 season.
“The best thing for me right now is making the best of this opportunity that I have with the team in terms of the relationships I make with these guys,” he said. “I get to freaking play football. This is what I dreamed of my entire life. I am going to be present. I’m going to be in the moment. I’m going to be where my feet are.”