Michael Penix Jr. was benched in the fourth quarter of the Falcons' blowout 30-0 loss to the Panthers on Sunday. Despite his rough outing, coach Raheem Morris plans to stick with Penix as the starting quarterback moving forward over Kirk Cousins.
When explaining more of his reasoning for remaining with Penix, Morris said that the quarterback was "off" on Sunday.
“He was off,” Morris said on Monday. “I don’t want to take away the fact that he did not play well. But there are definitely ways to get him going. He heals himself, he has high standards for himself. So yesterday, he definitely got down on himself. Yesterday, he was definitely not his normal, happy, competitive self. Got a little down on himself, got a little upset. And there’s different ways that we can help him bring him back, and there’s other people on our team that can bring him back."
Penix completed 18 of 36 passes for 172 yards and two interceptions. He received a quarterback rating of 12.5, a career low for him.
While it was a very disappointing performance from Penix, Morris is feeling "confident" about his quarterback's ability to bounce back in Week 4. He praised the young quarterback later on in his press conference.
“Confidence is high. Confidence is very high with this man," Morris said. "He’s our guy, man, and you’re going to have these games. You don’t want to have them a lot, but you’re going to have them. ... We’ve got a quarterback in the back that it’s happened to, and those things can happen. But, I’ve got a lot of confidence that he’s going to bounce back and be ready to deal. I’ve seen him have a bad practice. That’s the first time we’ve seen him have a bad game.”
We'll see how Penix does in Week 4 against the Commanders.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Raheem Morris Used One Word to Describe Michael Penix Jr.'s Rough Outing vs. Panthers.