Round One Draft Press Conference | Atlanta Falcons

e e turn I see you coming armed with water today yeah, he definitely definitely brought my water, he didn't, I still have it, you still have it, yeah, that's good, that's good, we're ready, that's okay guys, very, very excited about today's result, uh, today's, uh. being able to add uh Michael pennick Jr um when you can add a high caliber player like that um with his intangibles um those tools um he's a winner um very, very excited, don't pass up that opportunity um and uh KT cousins ​​is our quarterback , we're very excited about Kirk, very excited about this team, um and Michael Penck, we're talking about the future, the

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is, um, you look at the future and you look at the big picture, um, but we're very excited about that quarterback room field. um and again Kirk is our quarterback, but adding that Michael Pennick is thinking ahead, he's ready for questions, yes, sir, yes, um, what, um, what im

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ed you all on the visit on the 5th April, uh, he told us that he met with all of you at the combine and I know it was pretty difficult meeting him, but you know how the April 5 performance was, work out, yeah, every show with Penck, we're really excited about That, look, he, look at his history, he's been through some things. throughout his career, um, the injuries that he suffered early in his career and he was able to recover and do the things that he did at the University of Washington, so um, but every exposure, um, getting into this process and getting out there and seeing it in person, that's very important to us, being able to surround them, spend more time with them and we take advantage of every exposure, how did you balance that?

Hey, there's a good quarterback here and some defenders. were available and a receiver was right after your pick, how did you balance all the players that were available to you at eight? No, I'm sorry, coach, but it was pretty simple for us, when you have you and Kurt Cousins. We talk about winning in the short term, we talk about winning right now, which we know we'll be in a position to do, what we want to be in a position to do, um, we won't have the ability to reach this high level again with the guy. that we have and these guys come off the board pretty quickly and we thought it would be important for us to address our future quarterback right now, where we're picking this slow right now and be able to move forward, you know, fortunately. with us we have a Kur we have a cousin of Kurt's in the building we have a guy who can go out and win football games and we should pick high enough we talk about winning the South we talk about doing some of these things that include Going to the playoffs, you just saw six quarterbacks come off the board uh before the 12th pick in the

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and we don't want to bother anymore and Terry has done a good job of getting us some really good players. quality players, but we are not in that position again, so let's move on, let's think about the future, that right now we are in a position to win, we put ourselves in a position to win, these guys have done a great job of doing that and that helped us make that decision and made it pretty definitive in our building for us and how we wanted to move tonight and how we wanted to move today with it happening that way, yeah, and there's still a lot of good things. defensive players on the board and we're excited to have right now three picks tomorrow and we're going to make sure that we continue to add to this team not only good defensive players but they're still good offensive players on the board so um We're going to add some good players in this draft.

What would you say to a fan or subscriber who hasn't seen this team in the playoffs since 2017? You have to think about the future as On the contrary, you know you could have picked any defense player on the board, yeah, that's what we think about when we make decisions like this, the most important position in football and that's why we did everything we could. do to get Kirk Cousins ​​and tell you now we did everything we could to get Kirk Cousins ​​we're excited about him and then now we add Michael Pennick Jr that's what we're thinking about when we do these It's not an easy decision they're difficult decisions, but that's what we're thinking about, we're thinking about the fans, we're thinking about this organization, we're going to build a sustained winner and we're going to win for a long time. that's the most important position in football, so that's what we're thinking about, but this is this list that the Pro builds.

We have a lot left in this draft, we're going to add some good players that we have a lot of confidence and then even. As we come out of this 247 365 draft, we will continue to build this team if I can continue with one more in the same line of thinking. Would it have been so important to address this with this selection if it weren't for him? The fact that this quarterback that you just signed is going to be 36 years old and coming off a serious injury, yeah, I mean, it's a good look, we're very excited about where Kirk is, you know, we have a lot of confidence in him and everything. what you will do. do for us um again we're thinking longer term with this very very excited about Kirk who hasn't changed this is a pick thinking about the future and I can retire him I think he has nothing to do with the injury.

I think if we were lucky enough, we talked about it to have Kurt during his 12-year career with us. We'll still be in that position thinking about potentially getting our quarterback or getting the quarterback for the future and that's the nature of the Beast, we were fortunate enough to see Matt Ryan play 14 years, you know, I think 13 with the Atlanta Falcons and at some point you have to find a way to have that succession plan in place and what happened comes up tonight and with the guy that we have and the guy that we have and the guy that we think will come back like I said No, we don't want to be in this position again to elect that guy, we won't, we won't.

Be it Raheem, there may be a tension in this league between the front office that Terry's job is to build, and to think that three years into his job, he was hired with the expectation that this roster was ready to win now, so what? do you feel like it's there? a pull from your position to not do something that will seemingly help your team immediately. I don't think there's ever any tension when you talk about winning or long-term winning. I think our job is to win in the long term. I think our job is to win right away.

I think all of our work plays together, so when you say he has to address the immediate future, he's going to get Kurt Cousins ​​to lead us to a positional victory. that we need to address our roster to fill out some of the guys, the veterans that we had to go to free agency and we still have tomorrow, we still have the next day to continue to improve our roster, so to say that. there would ever be attention or division based on that. I think there was some well-calculated assumption and well-calculated thinking on our part, decisions that we made to go out and get the best for our football team and I think we did that tonight.

Terry T.'s point about a secession plan when you think about the position you're in in 2021 with Matt running and how much that decision and the effects of the last two seasons alter your own thinking about a secession plan with Kurt Cousins, yeah, Tori um. I understand the question, it's a good question, every draft is different, right, and every draft is completely different and there are some drafts where you just saw these quarterbacks and there are some drafts where not many quarbacks go, already You know, a couple of drafts. A quarterback ago went to the first round and you saw all the quarterbacks who won the first round, so these drafts are different, next year it may be different, that's why you have to do it when you have a lot of confidence in a player, you can't. that happens, you know, so it wasn't so much that we went to the draft and said, hey, because of the above, we have to make sure we have this in place because if we weren't looking at Penck there, we weren't going to reach in and force something um this wasn't us forcing something, we just have a lot of faith in the player um and we know that he can be a future franchise player and that's why we made the decision to do it right now.

I know that if it wasn't him, if we weren't saring or if other guys had gone, then we weren't going to try to catch up or try to force something. That is, we are very excited to know where we are. Now, but if there's a player on the board that we believe in and we're going to take it to that extreme, you can answer this as well, but what specifically is it about Michael that makes you feel that way? You know, it really is a lot. The same similar traits that we talked about, we have Kurt Cousins ​​talking about a guy, a pocket passer who can progress very well and who can do all the things he wants, throw the ball down the field.

We are talking about a player who can come. Come in and learn from a player we just drafted and I'll really be behind him. I really see the right way. Model it the right way. Be in the building at the same time. You know all those things we talked about when we hired Kirk. There are many things we saw in Michael's film that we love. You know, the live arm, the ability to go out and play, the ability to be healthy the last two years and really have success in Washington. We love to fight. kid, we love the interactions that we had with them throughout the whole process, I mean, everything that came up with that kind of stuff, so we're really excited about the man, we're really excited about the guy, really excited about our plan, really excited. the people we have in our building, particularly Kurt and knowing that he's going to be modeled the right way with the guy we have questions for Terry or U Raheem, either of you called Kurt when you were on the clock and told me about Which is your reaction?

Well, it's something private that we wouldn't share. You know, and obviously our reactions are pretty private. It's the right time to talk to a quarterback about those things and reactions will always be private when it comes to those things, unless Kurt decides to tell you some of those things, whatever the case may be, but he's a competitor, like all of us. and uh you can always expect those things to turn out just the way you think as agents have been telling us that they were shocked and dismayed and that they were informed about the club, yes Terry I think the conventional wisdom and as a The marshal of development camp or the quarterback you're going to use for the future is maybe you use a third-round pick or a fourth-round pick and hope they get better.

I assume your perspective on staffing the position has changed over the years. in terms of wanting to go all out in terms of allocating this top draft capital, I think you just know, look, you can say third and fourth round pick, um, if there's someone that you really believe in in the third or fourth round, but you can see. six quarterbacks went in the first round there's a reason um it's not easy it's not easy to do in terms of finding this position and you can do it when you really study the drafts and you study the history um there are years that there are none that there are years that There are a couple and when you really look at history, at the end of the day, if you believe in a player at that position, because if we're all sitting here in a few years, whenever that may be, and this guy is playing pretty well for someone, regardless of the situation, regardless of whether you sit back, look back and let it go, you can't do that, if you believe in a quarterback, you have to hire him and if he sits for four or five years, that's it.

It's a big deal because we're doing really well at that position, so it's as simple as if you see a guy you believe in at that position, you've got to pick him. I'm Joe Patrick from game 9. By the way, how do you train Michel to get to this position? How do you integrate it? What will be his role on the team? You know, you incorporate it like I said, he has a great guy who can be a model. his game after having a great guy he can model his process after having a great guy he can model everything on Kurt Cousins ​​is absolutely phenomenal from when he came into this league to now and you know it's a position he can just go. go ahead and do the right things within our building do the right things within the structure learn our offense and put yourself in position to go out there and try to be the best version of yourself that you know and that's all you need to do, just be the The best version of himself for us did the um, how did all the medicals fit in with his first part in Indiana?

The two knees, the shoulders, and the fact that he was healthy the last few years. How did his medical reports come in for his health, yeah, that's part of it, you know, we look at the whole history, again, our coaches and doctors, we spent a lot of time with them during that process and it means a lot that he played and he played good on these. The last two years, obviously, that's something we're always thinking about in the future in terms of doing everything we can to prevent injuries, but we feel good aboutregard. At what point do you guys move forward?

At what point did he do it? Maybe this whole thing is that you guys are so convinced of this choice, so at what point did he really sell out to you? Was that visit to Seattle? What maybe did or said you guys were like? Wow, this is our boy. I know you guys talked about Beon last year when you went to the barbecue place and you know that whole visit was like one that he solidified when he went with Michael. It's every step of the process. Know the boots on the ground, the Scouts are your first level and they are, um, they go through their Gathering all the information and um, and we get the ratings and reports from the scouts and then as the season comes out.

The coaches get involved and we continue to go through that process and, um, and then you have the All-Star Games, the combine, there's all these different levels and we work a lot on it, um, I wouldn't say. There was a magical moment, um, it's just going through the whole process and as you continue to work on the draft and um, and then, we look at what's there and, um, and when he was sitting there looking at us at eight, we weren't going. To put it out there, how do you balance these two quarterbacks in a way that you're sure they can learn and grow from each other?

It was really the young man's responsibility to learn from Kirk. You know you're talking about guys who had a lot of success in the National Football League and he, talking about a young man coming into a league, he's going to be hungry, he's RNG, he's going to be eager to learn and he's going to have a certain desire that it takes to sit down and learn, and you know. watch Kirk Do It um and that was the moment to do it and it's like you can't you can't put that on Kurt. Kurt's job is just to be a professional.

Kurt God will show him the way by the way he acts. the daily affairs of him every day and Michael will have the opportunity to see it first hand and I think that's a really good thing for a young player. Did you see that willingness to learn and be patient during these in-person meetings? You know, for me. I saw the willingness to learn when you're coaching them throughout the training, when you have the ability to talk to him within the zoom conversations that our coaches have with him, when you have the ability to go through the process and watch him go through all of his career and where he was and where he came from and the things he had done, so we're excited to add a guy of this caliber to add a guy that we feel could be our future, like you said we don't know what round is coming, they come in all kinds of rounds, but for us it's starting to happen a little bit faster now and things have happened faster and you know the Green Bay model was something we talked about and it's been proven correct. last year so I hope we're good with them anything else Terry wasn't the only quarterback still sitting there at No. 8, there was a lot of speculation watching the draft that other teams might be interested in possibly ascend around your place, can you? you talk about what kind of interest you had when your spot came up yeah we had a lot of communications about coming back and we talked to a lot of teams just for preliminary conversations to evaluate, but we didn't have um some we didn't get a big offer for someone to give up a lot to give up that. that that wasn't there again we're in communication um but there wasn't um there weren't any offers to present any major offers to get to our place, just a follow-up to the Green Bay model.

I, you know, don't you have it good here? um they were taking guys on the fourth and the fifth and six a rod on the first aod and Jordan on the first and Jordan on the first so it's more of the last part okay yeah no no Craig meil and uh Mada, what year are you there? You have to tell us what year you are there, yes, I am 9 years old, you came back to me. I was talking more to the previous model, you know, um 2000, the model when they took love, you know and think about that nature and think about that of putting a succession. plan in the building where it wasn't a popular choice by anyone, the fans, you clearly know the writers and some of that stuff, but you know, I think you have to trust your process, you have to trust your evaluations of players, I think You have to be really convinced of the people you put in to evaluate people.

I think once you do those things, you know along with Terry's people along with our people on the coaching side, you collaborate, you get in the rooms and you talk. about those things and you talk about where you're going to move forward and how you're going to move forward, you don't lose any conviction in the guys that you have in your room like a Kurt Cousins, um, you have full conviction in those guys to win the South, to go out and take the South and do all these things you want to do as a team. I think all of those things still apply, but at some point, you know, I wish we could all play forever, but I can't and if things go well, we'll be happy in Atlanta and we'll move forward with Curt and see what happens well, but we have five years before we can make those decisions based on when you pick these guys and the time they come out and, like we said, things have moved on, it's a little different than it used to be when you can pick a quarterback. third-round field and you can let those guys mature and grow. potential starters, it's a little bit different time, it's a little bit different world and like I said before, I hope and you hope that we're not in a position to draft quarterbacks because we're not going to pick low enough and if we can get to that level, so we'll talk about the things we want to play with and the gas we want to play with and how we want to play and what did you say to the people who just watched the Michigan game, but then there was another group that watched them at the Big 10 and then came the people who were watching the Pack 12 a lot more last year because maybe thanks to Coach Prime and they saw what he did against Oregon and uh, a lot of the, you know, 36 touchdowns and I saw what he could do. , you know, his whole work was, you know, can you address that, talking about Michael.

Yeah, you know, you know, we have a lot of conviction about Michael, right? You can go see where he got knocked down in that championship game against Michigan and where he didn't do so well. We can see the Texas game where he looked where he liked, but you can see the work throughout the season and the processor and you can see him go about his business and how he learns and how he grows and how he makes decisions, how he makes it happen and there will still be something , there will still be a learning curve when you get to national football.

League, there will be some things that they will ask him to do that they didn't ask him to do in college that he can learn and I think this is a perfect situation for him. I think with the boy we have the man. that we have, obviously, it's not going to be this happy feeling of emotions that people wanted to have right away, but it's a business, these guys are professionals, we're professionals, we love each other and we're competitive, so I think we'll do it. let's get this working together and we'll get this working the right way and we'll do it the way we needed to do it just as far as exploration there was enough underneath things because you could see everyone could see the bombs. for you know there was enough stuff underneath that everyone saw that could carry over to the Pro game.

You know I'm sorry, you want to continue, no, go ahead, the wow is obviously up, the Wow is up right when you see it cast. the ball down the field, the pil lines, you see the field post, you see some of those types of shots, but the progression of the player who watches them goes from the top to progressing to the low centers, being a downhill progress to the controls to do some of those things, some of the things that you obviously love about the player, he's playing a pro game at a very high level, his coordinator is now in the pro game and what he did last year, so I mean I don't know how to ex

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the fact that we're excited about his ability, but we're in a great position because we have a guy and you want to put yourself in a position to get a guy when you have a guy and that seems to be the new formula and the new style. and the way we want to do our business and I thought Terry did a good job working on the draft trying to figure out when it can happen, what's going to happen and how we're going to do it. and we're going to come together and do that together and that's not going to change, you know, based on some plays that didn't go the way you think they might go based on the ability to coach some of the things that you can. do better.

A lot of the online trashing in the media is that you know, shocking shock doesn't seem like you guys are shocked or stunned, so how do you analyze the reaction with what you saw and what you know? Yeah, I guess you understand, I mean, um. you have all the mock drafts and um, wherever they come from and uh, mock drafts and people have an expectation of what you're going to do and um, and usually people expect it to be like that, you know, and um , but we have It's a very detailed process as we move forward and we have a lot of people who work very hard.

Again and again, we have a long way to go in this draft. We are very excited and we are definitely going to get something. some defensive players, some offensive players and we're very excited about that, but I think sometimes people have a correct expectation of what they expect to happen and sometimes things go the other way, but when we make decisions like this again , We are thinking about this organization, we are thinking about these fans, we are thinking about the people here, and this is a decision for us, we have a lot of confidence in this player again, that is why we are very aggressive in the free. agency and we made sure we did everything we could to get Kirk Cousins ​​and we worked hard to do that because we know we're going to win a lot of games with Kirk and we're very excited about that and, um, when you're looking at a quarterback in We who believe a lot in the university game, take advantage of it Terry, I want to ask you about the age of the penis, he is older.

The prospect turns 24 years old. I think next week, in a couple of weeks, yes. everything is going according to plan with Kirk, he won't play for three or four years, you know, you're talking 27 28, you're not going to have a lot of video of him playing against starters, is there a risk there? As far as him sitting for Sal Long when he's an older prospect, yeah, it's kind of interesting in this draft, we're starting to see more older prospects, I know we have the co year there, but also, guys. uh we're starting to see a little bit more of that, guys staying in college a little bit longer, but that's not a problem, to answer your question, we have a lot of confidence in him and uh. and he looks at the way he plays and um, we feel really good about that, we don't worry about his age in a negative way, uh, Raheem, how do you see him fitting into Zach's offense?

What is it about his game that you think is a good combination and then also kind of the answer question is: lefties? This matters goes with the uh I go with the I go with the first I go with the first part of the question first you know um you know obviously the the the pocket passer in the National Football League the difference between college football and the National League of Football the biggest difference, I should say as a pair, but being able to be a pocket passer which he's shown in college and that's a natural for what you want to do when you're talking about any of these high-profile offenses that we're talking about. , you're talking about a pocket passer for the most part, whether it's Patrick Mahomes at best or whether it's um, all the great processes that we have in our that we've had Matt Ryan, whatever it is, um, His pocket passing ability is something that really stands out.

I would say why he would fit into our offense, Zach. Robinson's offense and the Atlanta Falcons offense in general, but the left-handed thing is definitely something that you would definitely change a couple of different things, you mentioned the Blindside change, you mentioned some of those things, you mentioned something that would definitely be a part of how you do your play action some of those things may be changing a little bit uh particularly how you throw how you roll how you half turn how you change the pocket how you change the platforms things of that nature, but you know it's something that we're all willing to do , that's something that we all have a little bit of experience with and we can talk about those things once we have our plan in place on the grass and Terry, you kind of mentioned at the beginning that This is like it was difficult Why was it difficult ?

Was it because you knew there was going to be a certain reaction? I guess knowing that you might have taken some, you know, no, I guess I didn't mean what I was trying to do. Say this is a business, right? So the hard part is, obviously, you're not always going to please everyone, right? I mean, you just said it, there are fans who might say, okay, why wouldn't you do this? Why would you do that? Um, because you want it, yeah, you want it, so we have to think about what's best for this franchise, what's best for this team, but you know, sometimes.

There are some decisions that you make and there may be some, so that's the hard part. I guess you know it's a business, but we know this is going to be something thatWe are going to be very excited about this decision and we are. I'm very excited about this decision and although right now you can see why another quarterback, but we're very excited about the quarterback that we signed in free agency and we just drafted one, two, so we're excited about that. Otherwise, Raheem, as a coach, what have you learned about Michael on his journey? He spoke in the player tribute story, which I'm sure you've read, he spoke not only about his injuries, but also about being told from the beginning that he was not good enough to play in the SEC and that's why He went to Indiana, so he had something to prove there and what is it?

He has come back from adversity in different ways. It's something about the two quarterbacks we have in the building right now. right, two guys who were kind of a doubter, always proving people wrong, you know, Kurt is no different with that story and Michael Penick's story sounds very similar. There is something about people who go through adversity. There's something about people that they can handle. adversity and there's something about people that can absolutely bounce back from all different types of walks of life and be here. I'm no different, right? I've been a head coach before and I've failed at that and I have the opportunity to bounce back and I want to make the most of it and those two players, they, they, they represent that in the highest way and Michael is of the opinion that it would make no difference and what we are talking. the people who face adversity and how they face adversity in this sport um and and just to push back on Terry, you know it's always difficult for us to make those decisions because of the people and because of that will and because of that will.

You're talking about that, you're talking about that will to fight that Michael Penck had to get to this point. There's no difference between our starting quarterback right now and Kurt Cousins, and that's why you empathize with all those guys, because you know what. This is and you know how this goes and you know, I think someone mentioned how you handle the fact that he can play for four years, man, and that would make me feel better about watching Kurt Cousins ​​play for four years because there's something really Well. The things that happen here failure is part of the process, it's part of the process when you have guys with the right makeup and the right humility, but he's right and that's what we love about this team, the character of this team and the two boys.

The ones we're talking about are obviously high character players, will he be in Dolan D? Yes, we will let you know that we will have a press

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tomorrow. Of course, we won't tell them anything, we won't make false promises that we can't keep, yes. send send the plane to Tampa pick it up otherwise okay okay thanks everyone thanks guys this draft is late to the east coast guys e