The Win Column: A letter to Michael Penix Jr.

Morning, folks.

The Braves have assumed their rightful place as National League East champions … but we’ve got less pleasant matters to address first.

DEAR MICHAEL …

Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr., stunned. (Miguel Martinez/AJC)

I get it. I really do.

This is your third devastating knee injury — and quite possibly your last chance to prove you can be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

You want to give yourself the best chance to succeed. You want to wait until you’re 1,000% ready.

But Mike. Listen.

We need you.

Sweet mother of mercy do we need you.

This is my 10th season as a Falcons season ticket holder. Been going to games a lot longer than that. Until Sunday, I had never heard the home crowd boo one of its own players so lustily. Or consistently.

• Cunningham: Fans deserve better
• Sugiura: Unacceptable, even for Falcons

Every time Cooper Rush — unwitting, incapable — ran onto the field. Every time he ran off. Occasionally in between, if there were enough time.

They even chanted for Jack Strand, inexperienced D2 grad. Roared when he came in.

He was not ready to face an NFL defense.

Offensive lineman Chris Lindstrom, afterward: “There’s no words you can say as a player. The fans aren’t happy. They shouldn’t be happy. We’re not happy with ourselves, and that wasn’t good enough.”

• Players say they understand the boos
• Position grades: QBs get an F

That’s the kind of stuff your guys are out here having to talk about, Mike.

We’re two games in and the offense hasn’t taken a single snap in the red zone, Mike.

Please make it stop.

Some reports suggest you’re “nearing a return” and “could make” your debut Thursday night in Green Bay — the first of three straight nationally televised Falcons games, by the way.

You know the folks around here are used to being embarrassed. (National headlines like this one from SBNation — “The Falcons suck so bad they’ve reached new levels of suck” — don’t even really register anymore.)

They’re definitely used to being let down. (Neuroscientists out in Oregon recently discovered “a group of brain cells that essentially act as a ‘disappointment meter,’ announcing when reality is falling short of expectations.” We suspect they’ll study Falcons fans next.)

But wouldn’t it feel great to spare the masses from some of that? To play the hero?

We don’t need perfection. Just competence.

You can do that.

Please?

📲 Follow beat writer @ByDanielFlick for the latest updates. Unfortunately, the Falcons QB Wheel of Destiny remains relevant, as well.

BACK ATOP THE DIVISION

Ronald Acuna Jr. started the celebration early. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)

After the Braves completed their weekend sweep of the Astros and clinched their seventh division title of the past nine years, Walt Weiss held a bottle of Champagne and addressed his club.

“I had a wise guy tell me once — the guy I played for, he’s a Hall of Famer — he said this is the toughest one,” Weiss said. “Because it takes six months to do it. The other ones are obviously more special, but you can do it in a week.”

Yes, that was a Bobby Cox reference. And yes, winning an MLB division remains one of sports’ most impressive endurance tests.

📝 Columnist Michael Cunningham took it step further in his latest Weekend Reflections:

Believing that winning the division is a greater accomplishment than winning the World Series probably makes me a weirdo. But baseball teams that outlast the competition over a full season are more impressive to me than those that catch enough breaks during the small sample size of October.

Don’t get me wrong: The baseball postseason is exciting because every game matters so much. It’s a nice change of pace from the grind of the regular season.

But that grind is what makes division titles so satisfying. There is no way to luck into it. The Braves certainly didn’t.

Hear, hear.

Just think about how you felt this time last year (and the year before) … and enjoy the current vibes a bit longer.

BUT AS FAR AS THE PLAYOFFS GO …

On Friday, y’all ranked your anxiety levels on a scale of 1 to 10. The average: 6.95. The most common answer: 8.

The majority of folks wanted to face the Padres in the first round. Most of the rest wanted the Phillies, which is how things actually line up at the moment.

• With six games left to play, the Braves trail the second-seeded Dodgers by four games.
• That means they’re all but locked into the No. 3 spot, which involves hosting a three-game Wild Card series against the six seed.
• At 86-70, Philadelphia currently fills that spot, but the Cubs and Padres are just a game ahead.

The Braves wrap things up by hosting Cincinnati Tuesday through Thursday, then a weekend trip to Miami. May the offense — and Ronald Acuña Jr. in particular — stay hot through it all.

OTHER GOOD STUFF TO KNOW

The "tarps off" section during Georgia Tech's win over Mercer felt a tad underwhelming. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

⭐ Former Braves Brian Snitker and Terry Pendleton headline the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame’s latest jam-packed class. Also included: Renowned high school coaches, Bulldog legends and a Yellow Jacket icon.

🫢 Georgia football dominated Arkansas on Saturday, and, yes, those were Bulldog linemen running drills during TV timeouts.

“That’s a belief (defensive line coach Tray Scott) has that, if we’re not getting enough work, they’re not running the ball enough, they’re not being physical enough, we need to get work,” head coach Kirby Smart said postgame. “So he gets work between snaps and between huddle breaks to make sure we’re getting enough to earn their NIL every day.”

• Yeesh. Not sure Oklahoma (which followed its loss to Michigan with an ugly 14-6 win over New Mexico) presents much more of a test this weekend.

🤞 Bad news: Georgia Tech is 1-2. Good news: Neither of those defeats are conference losses. The Jackets start ACC play Saturday at Stanford (still weird) with plenty to improve on.

From Gabe Burns’ latest piece: “The Jackets simply aren’t as explosive offensively as they were under Buster Faulkner — not a surprising reality — and they lack an offensive line that can control games (the unit was down three starters Saturday, but it struggled when healthy). They made strides Saturday with more big plays, but they’ll need to show it against better competition.”

🏀 The Atlanta Dream keep rolling and, per Mr. Cunningham, stand to host a home playoff series if they can keep their current fourth-place standing: “They trail the third-place Aces by a game and lead the fifth-place Fever by a game. Atlanta finishes the regular season with back-to-back games at sixth-place New York.”