What if Kirk Cousins actually is better than Michael Penix Jr.?

FLOWERY BRANCH — This may prove a most laughable notion in two months.

But what if Kirk Cousins actually is the better quarterback for the Falcons than Michael Penix Jr.?

We all saw Penix’s ability in his three-game run at the end of last season after Cousins’ post-injury play left the team no choice but to sit him down.

He anticipated well, made plays when it counted most and earned the support of the team. It was understandable why coach Raheem Morris made Penix his guy going forward.

But it doesn’t discount what Cousins did when he was healthy. Before a bludgeoning hit in the Falcons’ loss to the Saints in New Orleans in November injured his throwing shoulder and elbow and derailed his season, Cousins had twice won NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors. He was on track to be a strong candidate for Comeback Player of the Year. It’s hardly unreasonable to think that if Cousins hadn’t gotten hurt, the Falcons would have ended their postseason drought.

And now in training camp, for whatever it’s worth, Cousins has looked better than Penix in the 11-on-11 periods. Further, he has done so while leading the No. 2 offense against the No. 1 defense while Penix has the more optimal matchup — running the No. 1 offense against the No. 2 defense.

On Friday, for instance, in 11-on-11, Penix completed eight of 21 passes while Cousins was 14-for-17.

You could write it off and say training-camp statistics have less worth than (just one second) the Iranian rial, known to anyone with access to a search engine as the world’s least valuable currency.

In the Falcons’ 2023 training camp, former coach Arthur Smith scoffed at the idea that Desmond Ridder’s passing numbers on the practice field held meaning, though Ridder didn’t quite validate Smith’s lack of concern once the season began, leading to both of them becoming ex-Falcons.

Speaking Friday after practice, offensive coordinator Zac Robinson pronounced himself “really pleased with where Mike’s at” and not concerned with any possible shortcomings in his consistency or accuracy.

“I have no problems with it,” Robinson said. “I’ve always thought Mike is an accurate quarterback, and he has an ability to where it might look like a miss when you’re watching from the hill (overlooking the practice field) or something, but really, he’s just fixing it late in the down and he ends up saying, ‘I felt like the defender was undercutting it so I left it high.’”

I asked Robinson if it were possible that, when healthy, Cousins actually is the better quarterback. After all, he is someone the franchise gave a contract with $100 million guaranteed not so long ago.

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Obviously, Kirk’s got a ton of experience. He’s played a ton of football games. We made that switch late in the season because we felt like Michael was the right quarterback to go with.”

This isn’t to say that Morris and Robinson got it wrong. Anyone who watched Penix play in the final three games of the season could see why the Falcons are so high on him, and Morris and Robinson have a far deeper understanding of the two quarterbacks than anyone else. But it must be at least possible that Cousins is the better option. Teams make mistakes judging quarterbacks all the time.

Here are two scenarios the Falcons absolutely don’t want. Penix starts out poorly and creates pressure on Morris to make a change or Penix gets hurt and Cousins comes off the bench and outplays Penix. What would the Falcons do then?

The latter is fascinating. After all of the investment the coaching staff made in Penix over the offseason, what if it became clear Cousins gave the Falcons the better chance to win?

It would be the reverse of the situation Morris had to navigate last year, when Cousins’ play after the injury forced him to make the awkward decision to put Cousins and his gigantic contract on the bench.