We charted every Falcons pass in training camp. Here’s what the numbers say.
FLOWERY BRANCH — Tua Tagovailoa stood behind a podium Friday night in Miami Gardens, Florida, and acknowledged his fate is no longer in his hands.
Asked if he feels he’s done enough this offseason to win the Falcons’ starting quarterback battle, Tagovailoa said it isn’t his job to make those decisions. The final say comes down to general manager Ian Cunningham, coach Kevin Stefanski and offensive coordinator Tommy Rees.
Tagovailoa has four more practices to work next week, but much of his offseason resume is complete. It’s a similar story for Michael Penix Jr., Cooper Rush and Jack Strand. Collectively, the group threw more than 500 passes during training camp. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution charted all of them.
Here’s what the numbers say about the Falcons’ quarterbacks.
A few disclaimers:
- A lot happens in training camp practices. The odds are quite high that, across 18 total sessions, we missed some throws.
- Vantage points are difficult. The media viewing area during team periods is often behind the end zone, making distance hard to gauge. Did that pass travel nine yards or 10? It’s a small difference, right? On the graph, it’s the difference between a short and intermediate pass.
- This, ultimately, is just practice. There are different periods — red-zone, move-the-ball, two-minute drills, scout-team looks — and scenarios. Sometimes, the first-team offense plays the second-team defense. Others, it’s starters vs. starters. The reps, statistically, count the same, but the weight of the rep differs in reality.
Tua Tagovailoa
In 11-on-11 periods, Tagovailoa went 73-for-112 passing, a 65% completion rate. He was 7-for-15 passing on attempts 20-plus yards downfield. The bulk of his work came in the short game — of his 124 attempts, 84 came within 9 yards of the line of scrimmage, be it in front or behind the line.
Tagovailoa went 53-for-76 passing on underneath throws, a 69.7% completion rate. Here’s his full chart for 11-on-11 periods:
Tagovailoa didn’t take any reps in 7-on-7 until Aug. 10, the third week of training camp. From there, he completed 14 of 21 passes overall, but he was just 3-for-8 passing on attempts of 10-plus yards.
FINAL LINE: Tagovailoa went 87-for-133 passing, a 66% completion rate. In the preseason, he completed 10 of 13 passes for 117 yards. All told, between training camp and the exhibition slate, Tagovailoa finished 97-for-146 passing, completing 66.4% of his attempts.
Michael Penix Jr.
Penix wasn’t cleared for 11-on-11 participation until Aug. 20, and his first practice in full-team periods came Monday. So, for the first month of training camp, he worked solely in 7-on-7 sessions.
With no pass rush to worry about, Penix adopted a top-down approach. He took more shots and aggressively attacked downfield windows. All told, he went 67-for-105 passing — a 64% clip — in 7-on-7 during training camp.
Stefanski said during OTAs that quarterbacks should complete 90% of their passes in 7-on-7, which naturally favors the offense. While Penix fell short of the mark, it’s worth noting 46 of his 105 attempts, or 43.8%, were 10-plus yards beyond the line of scrimmage.
Here’s Penix’s passing chart from 7-on-7, which featured a small dose of red-zone drills but otherwise came at midfield or other yardages with room to operate.
In 11-on-11, Penix went 16-for-29 passing in his first week back, which equals a 55% completion rate. The Falcons ran two-minute and red-zone drills Wednesday, which negated the chance for vertical shots.
But across Monday and Tuesday, Penix had more success throwing 10-plus yards downfield than within 9 yards of the line of scrimmage — he was 5-for-10 passing in the former and 4-for-10 passing in the latter.
Here’s his full 11-on-11 chart:
Across 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 periods, Penix went 83-for-134 passing — a 62% clip — during training camp. He completed nine of 20 passes that traveled 20-plus air yards, and he had more completions over the middle (39) than any other part of the field.
Cooper Rush
The Falcons signed Rush on July 29, the first day of training camp. He said at the time he only packed clothes for a week. In hindsight, he should’ve packed more.
Rush, a 31-year-old veteran, took the majority of second-team snaps in 11-on-11 periods before Penix returned to team sessions. Rush went 63-for-107 passing, a 59% clip, in team periods. He didn’t connect on a pass beyond 20 air yards, and the vast majority of his completions — 53 of 63, or 84.1% — came within 9 yards of the line of scrimmage.
Here’s Rush’s 11-on-11 passing chart.
The Falcons gave Rush six reps of 7-on-7 action in their fourth training camp practice and largely went away from it thereafter. He went 2-for-7 passing in 7-on-7 across the entirety of camp.
Rush went 65-for-114 passing, a 57% completion rate, during training camp. He played in all three preseason games, going 30-for-48 passing for 254 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, both in the exhibition opener against the Broncos.
Collectively, between camp and the preseason, Rush completed 95 of 162 passes this summer, a 58.6% clip. Here’s his full training camp chart.
Jack Strand
Perhaps no quarterback in the NFL had a more interesting training camp than Strand, who was the only fully healthy signal-caller in the Falcons’ team meeting the night before the opening practice.
In turn, Strand saw the majority of 11-on-11 reps for the first week of training camp, before Tagovailoa and Rush gradually surpassed him. By camp’s end, the undrafted rookie from Division II Minnesota State Moorhead was largely out of the 11-on-11 rotation, but he still put together a solid sample size in a month’s worth of work.
Strand went 56-for-87 passing, a 64% completion rate, in 11-on-11 periods. But of his 56 completions, only eight were more than 10 yards — he was 8-for-21 passing on such attempts.
In 7-on-7, Strand was 6-for-13 passing, including 0-of-3 on throws 10-plus yards downfield.
Strand finished training camp at 62-for-100 passing. Here’s his full chart:
In three preseason appearances, Strand went 24-for-36 passing for 306 yards and one touchdown, to go along with a pair of scores on the ground. Much of his success came in the second exhibition game against the Colts, during which he went 12-for-17 for 212 yards and two total touchdowns.
Altogether, the 22-year-old completed 86 for 136 passes, a 63.2% clip, between training camp and the preseason games.
The quarterbacks as a collective
The Falcons’ four signal-callers went a combined 298-for-483 passing, a 62% completion rate. They were 89-for-146 passing in 7-on-7 and 209-for-337 passing in 11-on-11.
Here’s the full graph of the Falcons’ 483 charted passing plays.
A moment for the pass-catchers
Here’s the full rundown of the Falcons’ target and reception leaders during training camp.
Targets:
1. WR Drake London: 67
2. WR Zachariah Branch: 42
3. TE Kyle Pitts: 40
4. WR Chris Blair: 33
5. WR Jahan Dotson: 29
6t. WR Vinny Anthony II: 28
6t. TE Austin Hooper: 28
8. WR Keelan Marion: 27
9. WR Olamide Zaccheaus: 23
10. WR Dylan Drummond: 22
11t. RB Bijan Robinson: 20
11t. TE Charlie Woerner: 20
13. TE Jack Velling: 18
14. RB Brian Robinson Jr.: 17
15. RB Cash Jones: 16
16. WR Juice Wells: 15
17. TE Joshua Simon: 13
18t. RB Tyler Goodson: 6
18t. RB Nathan Carter: 6
20. WR Beaux Collins: 1
20. TE Nick Muse: 1
Receptions:
1. WR Drake London: 39
2. WR Zachariah Branch: 27
3. TE Kyle Pitts: 23
4. TE Austin Hooper: 21
5. WR Jahan Dotson: 20
6t. WR Chris Blair: 18
6t. WR Vinny Anthony II: 18
8t: RB Bijan Robinson: 17
8t. WR Olamide Zaccheaus: 17
10. TE Charlie Woerner: 14
11. RB Cash Jones: 13
12t. RB Brian Robinson Jr.: 12
12t. TE Jack Velling: 12
14. WR Keelan Marion: 11
15. TE Joshua Simon: 9
16. WR Dylan Drummond: 8
17t. WR Juice Wells: 6
17t. RB Tyler Goodson: 6
19t. RB Nathan Carter: 1
19t. WR Beaux Collins: 1
21. TE Nick Muse: 0
What to make of the Falcons’ QB battle
The NFL calendar acknowledges training camp as a thing of the past, but Stefanski will treat next week — with four non-game-planning practices — as an extension of those practices. Regardless, the Falcons enter the week without an answer under center.
Tagovailoa produced the highest completion rate. Penix delivered more downfield throws, though only narrowly — he had nine to Tagovailoa’s eight, despite working primarily in 7-on-7 settings.
Neither Tagovailoa nor Penix separated themselves in camp. Tagovailoa was trending favorably entering the preseason opener, then he hit something of a midsummer wall over the next week-and-a-half. Penix, meanwhile, has been up-and-down in his own regard.
The Falcons intentionally split their passing rep count to give Tagovailoa and Penix a similar workload. They wanted the fight to be as even as possible, a challenging task with Penixrecovering from a torn ACL suffered in November.
If nothing else, the coaching staff handled its part. The quarterbacks had a level playing field — Penix threw 134 passes in training camp, Tagovailoa threw 133 in practice plus another 13 in two preseason games — and, despite difficult circumstances, a relatively equal opportunity to make a statement.
Instead, the Falcons still don’t have a clear-cut answer. Perhaps another week of comparison with Penix in 11-on-11 periods will ease the staff’s decision. But the point remains: nearly 500 pass attempts later, the Falcons’ quarterbacks still have plenty of work to do.