With the Michael Penix and Bo Nix Picks, the NFL Has Entered a New Era of QB Chaos

At first blush, the shocking Falcons and Broncos selections may look similar. But their differences explain something about the state of NFL quarterbacking—and how teams go about finding their guy.

In 1983, six quarterbacks were selected in the first round of the NFL draft. It was unbelievable and unprecedented at the time. John Elway was first off the board, then Todd Blackledge, Jim Kelly, Tony Eason, Ken O’Brien, and a true deep cut for the real fans: Dan Marino. He was the earliest QB6 ever drafted at no. 27 (his selection marked the first time that six quarterbacks were taken in Round 1). And he remained the earliest QB6 ever selected until Thursday evening, when Oregon quarterback Bo Nix smashed his record at no. 12.

Twelve picks. Six quarterbacks. On paper, this was the greatest draft for quarterbacks in NFL history, bar none.

We heard it might happen, but seeing it actually happen was still quite the thrill. Two bombshells dropped in rapid succession on Thursday evening. The first came when the Atlanta Falcons—a team that had just signed Kirk Cousins to a deal with $100 million guaranteed in free agency—selected Michael Penix with the no. 8 pick. Penix was QB4 off the board despite near-universal expectations that Michigan passer J.J. McCarthy would be the fourth quarterback selected. Instead, McCarthy went two picks later to the Vikings. And two selections after that, the second bombshell hit when the Denver Broncos selected Nix and made history.

At first blush, the Penix and Nix selections look similar: fringe Round 1 quarterbacks that were taken way, way earlier than expected. It is easy to say “Wow, the league really loved this class way more than we thought!”—but that is an oversimplification. It is easy to say “Man, the league really needs quarterbacks, huh?”—but that is also an oversimplification. Penix and Nix each tell us something about the state of quarterbacking in the NFL. Not because of what they share—the shock value of their selections—but because of how different the two picks are.

Let’s start with Penix. The Falcons took Penix because they have the longest view in the room. As general manager Terry Fontenot told reporters on Thursday evening, if Penix sits for several years, Fontenot doesn’t mind at all:

I don’t think a team has ever invested as much in their QB2 as the Falcons just did, and certainly not with as long of a time horizon as the Falcons currently have. When rookies are drafted as QB2s with the intent to develop into QB1s, they typically go at the end of the first round (Paxton Lynch at no. 26, Jordan Love at 26, Lamar Jackson at 32) or the beginning of the second (Will Levis at 33, Drew Lock at 42, Jalen Hurts at 53).

An argument can be made that Trey Lance, the third pick in 2021, represented the largest QB2 investment ever. He cost the San Francisco 49ers three first-rounders after they traded up to snag him, and he sat behind Jimmy Garoppolo for the first season of his career. But he was always meant to unseat Garoppolo, as Garoppolo’s contract kept him in San Francisco for only one more year—which is exactly the situation most developmental quarterbacks are drafted into. Lance behind Garoppolo, Lamar behind Joe Flacco, Levis behind Ryan Tannehill, et cetera. A one-year timeline.

The Falcons are not on a one-year timeline. In fact, before the Penix selection, I don’t think anyone would have even imagined anything less than a two-year timeline. Because Atlanta didn’t draft Penix to back up and eventually supplant a longtime Falcons quarterback who no longer cut the mustard, or even a veteran bridge quarterback who was acquired as a one-year placeholder. They drafted Penix to back up and eventually supplant a quarterback they signed to a mega-contract just six weeks ago: Cousins.

Cousins, who was the apple of the league’s eye in this year’s free agency. Cousins, who wanted to go to Atlanta so badly that the Falcons may have tampered to get him—and they may be punished accordingly. Cousins, who will 100 percent be a Falcon for at least the next two seasons because he’s set to make $100 million in guarantees. Cousins, who either did not know that this was going to go down, like at all, or found out about it as the pick was being made.

This is stunning and discombobulating. I’m not sure how to calibrate to it. Usually, when a team guarantees a quarterback $100 million, it’s pretty pot-committed to that quarterback succeeding. Put another way: When Fontenot signed Cousins to a deal worth $45 million annually, he communicated to the league and to owner Arthur Blank that this guy was good enough to take the Falcons to the promised land. The Falcons haven’t been to the playoffs since the 2017 season—but Cousins was good enough to fix that. They said as much in their post-draft presser, as head coach Raheem Morris noted that Cousins was too good of a player for the Falcons to be picking in the top 10 every year.

The Falcons believe Cousins can and will deliver—they’re saying it with their mics and with their money. Yet Fontenot still drafted Cousins’s replacement in Penix, with the GM seemingly certain that he’d be around in two (?) or three (??!) or four (?!??!?!) seasons to reap the rewards of his long investment. That is either a shocking promise of job security from Blank, a shocking assumption from Fontenot, or something in between. Either way, we’re not accustomed to seeing this, and rightfully so—most general managers don’t risk planting seeds only their replacement will see sprout.

While the Penix pick may seem like a Packers-esque investment in quarterback development, as Morris referenced Thursday night; while it may bear resemblance to the Eagles’ prescient selection of Jalen Hurts in 2020 when starting quarterback Carson Wentz was dealing with injuries; we simply cannot wave away the difference in scale. The Falcons spent the no. 8 pick on Michael Penix. According to the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart, the Penix pick is twice as valuable as the 26th pick, which the Packers spent on Love. It is almost four times as valuable as the 53rd overall pick, which the Eagles spent on Hurts.

The investment is enormous—not just in draft capital, but in accompanying pay scale. Because he was drafted so early, Penix will be on a four-year, $22 million deal. His average annual salary of $5.5 million is 32nd among league quarterbacks. Let’s say everything goes according to plan: Cousins is good for a few years, and then he hands things off to Penix, and Penix is good. Penix will turn 24 on May 8. He might not see the field until he’s 26; he might not actually get good until he’s 27. By the time he’s starting and succeeding, he won’t just be knocking on the door of his fifth-year option (which will be hefty); he’ll be 28 while doing so. When his fifth-year option expires, and it’s time to sign him to a megadeal, he’ll be turning 29. Dak Prescott, who is looking for his third contract in the league, is 30 right now.

Similarly large and similarly unprecedented is the trust in the incumbent QB1, who now faces a quick and sudden obsolescence. If Cousins had already been with the Falcons for a few seasons, it would have been easier to anticipate the Atlanta brass hedging their bet on a 35-year-old pocket passer who is coming off of an Achilles injury and has quarterbacked a top-10 offense just once in the last six seasons. Maybe the writing on the wall would have been clearer if Cousins were given a contract with an escape hatch after one season, not two.

But the Falcons just handed Cousins this deal. Fontenot and Blank built this contract with Penix at no. 8 in the back of their mind. Don’t just think about what else the Falcons could have done with the no. 8 pick (though that is fair to include in a critique of this move)—think about what they could have done with $45 million in free agency this year! Throw $10 million at Jacoby Brissett, sure. But after that? Arik Armstead? Danielle Hunter? Christian Wilkins? Keenan Allen?

The Falcons may use reference points like the Packers to normalize what they just did, but this is truly a quantum leap from anything we’ve seen before—from Love, from Hurts, from Lance. We have never seen a team, with this many eggs in its QB1 basket, reach back into the henhouse to shove this many eggs into its QB2 basket. And perhaps that makes this move a good one; perhaps there is no limit to the appropriate investment in the quarterback room.

But for right now, I just watched a team promise $100 million to one quarterback, and then draft another at no. 8, and I can’t reconcile that in my noggin. My brain doesn’t stretch that far into the future. In part because I’m limited and fearful of risk and not paid to run an NFL team—but also because I know about the frailty of job security among NFL general managers. Because I know how challenging it can be to manage a locker room with two quarterbacks who have reasonable claims to the starter throne. Because I know that quarterback development is not easy, and the best-laid plans of the NFL often fall thunderously awry.

If the Falcons’ selection of Penix is all about the future, then the Broncos’ selection of Nix is all about the present—and even more so, about the past. If the Nix pick feels semi-reasonable, it’s only because Penix went four picks earlier and was truly astonishing. That, and the fact that the Broncos seemed pretty liable to do something absolutely bananas in this year’s draft. And they certainly did.

The Broncos didn’t take Nix at no. 12 to sit for a year, as the Patriots may have done at no. 3 with Drake Maye; nor to sit for an indeterminate number of years, as the Falcons did with Penix. They took him to win the starting job right now. Jarrett Stidham and Zach Wilson are not viewed as starting quarterbacks in this league; quarterbacks taken in the Top 15 are Year 1 starters far more often than not. Nix is meant to be the Broncos’ guy from Week 1, even if training camp will be construed as a battle for the starting job.

But Nix is simply not what we typically expect to see out of a first-round quarterback. He was a five-year starter at the college level—over 60 games under his belt—and he never did anything spectacular over that time. His most remarkable achievement came at the beginning of his career: beating Oregon in his first start as a freshman with the Auburn Tigers. He never played in an SEC championship game, let alone won one. He transferred to Oregon ahead of his senior season and lost this year’s Pac-12 championship game to Washington.

Conference championships do not a pro quarterback make, of course, but it’s worth asking why the no. 12 pick played 60 games in college and never really moved the needle. Nix got better over his years of experience, much like Penix did; and he benefited from playing with future NFLers as he grew, much like Penix did. But where Penix pushed the ball downfield and created big plays, Nix lived in the underneath areas of the field: Nix’s average college depth of target (6.8 yards) was third-lowest among all college quarterbacks last season. He let the system work for him, and while he deserves credit for getting to the correct calls and executing, there is no question that he was asked to do remarkably fewer challenging things than most Round 1 quarterbacks.

Of course, Oregon’s extremely shallow offense had a positive effect on Nix’s accuracy. Nix set the collegiate record for single-season completion percentage, supplanting Mac Jones from a few seasons prior. Funnily enough, the record for single-season completion percentage in the NFL is held by Drew Brees, who set it in 2018 with the Saints … while playing for now-Broncos head coach Sean Payton.

Now, immediately after the Nix pick, Payton went on The Pat McAfee Show and said that he’d asked the Broncos’ analytics team for Nix’s numbers in the passing game without short throws—he mentioned quick screens and bubbles, though it’s not super clear what else was removed—and that Nix had the best yards per completion in the class.

Set aside the fact that yards per completion is remarkably worse than yards per attempt, which is worse than success rate or expected points added (and that removing short throws is worse than just adjusting for air yards to the sticks, so on and so forth). Let’s say the Broncos justifiably liked and ranked Nix as a Round 1 guy, no matter what process they used to get there. Why not trade back out of no. 12, get some draft capital, and snag Nix later?

“We had the Raiders behind us, so we just didn’t want to overthink it. This was our guy, and we were going to take our guy,” general manager George Paton said about the pick. “We could have moved a couple picks back and maybe have gotten some picks, but at the end of the day, this was our guy. Let’s just take him. Let’s not overthink this. We would have been sick if we lost him just for a couple of fifth-round picks.”

Meanwhile, Payton’s willingness to stay and take Bo at no. 12 no matter what apparently stemmed from his near-miss on another previous first-round quarterback: Patrick Mahomes. As Adam Schefter tweeted immediately following the Nix pick:

While the Penix selection is an unprecedented approach, the Nix selection is far more familiar: it was made by learning the wrong lessons from past moments. Classic NFL. Payton saw a quarterback who reminded him of Brees, so he wanted him. He remembered the one time he wanted to draft a first-round quarterback in Mahomes, but couldn’t because of some trade shenanigans, so he stayed in place and drafted Nix.

But this is all preposterous mythmaking. It doesn’t accurately reflect Nix as a prospect or the Broncos’ decision-making process. If Payton were burned by the Chiefs jumping him for Mahomes, why didn’t he trade up to secure Nix—especially if the Falcons’ surprising pick really freaked the Broncos out as much as Paton said it did? That would be an authentic reaction to the Mahomes mistake. If Nix were really the most accurate quarterback in the class, why did five quarterbacks go before him? Why were the Broncos, an obvious quarterback team, able to sit on their heels and let their guy fall to them?

Denver’s story about Nix—falling in love with him after his pro day, not being willing to risk him slipping through their fingers—simply doesn’t fit reality nearly as well as a far more obvious tale: that the Broncos didn’t have a quarterback and needed one really, really badly. That desperation drove them to justify Nix in the first round, while other teams with longer views and more sober outlooks didn’t go to those ends. Sure, they liked Nix. There’s a lot to like! But only a team with an intense quarterback need would take QB6 with the 12th overall pick—something that had never come close to happening before.

Remember: Before Payton was Broncos head coach Sean Payton, he was recently-retired head coach Sean Payton. He left his New Orleans team holding the bill after years of all-in-ness, of big contracts for aging players that were full of restructures and void years. An enormous contract enticed Payton out of retirement and into Denver, where the Broncos will be recovering from the Russell Wilson error for multiple seasons. If the Broncos had a long view heading into this draft—some of that Falcons’ foresight, perhaps—they could have traded the no. 12 pick for some future capital. More rookie contracts would help them recover from Wilson’s dead cap hit faster, and more picks would’ve helped them recover some of the draft capital they traded to New Orleans for Payton.

But Payton isn’t here for the future. If Nix doesn’t work out and Denver continues to struggle, Payton can either retire again or wait until he’s fired. He doesn’t have anything left to prove—he’s a Super Bowl champion and one of the best coaches of the modern era. He’s here for the now. Either he turns this sucker around with Nix fast, or he just jumps to the next option at quarterback. What care does he have for future resources, if he may not be around to use them? As I said at the top: The Broncos always looked like a team that was ready to take a massive swing. They did just that.

If there’s something we should learn from both the Falcons and the Broncos, it’s this: The poles are dangerous places to be. You don’t want to be drafting a QB2 at no. 8, and you don’t want to take the sixth quarterback off the board at no. 12 and give him Mahomes expectations. As such, we should not let the first round of the 2024 NFL draft drag us to extreme reactions. This isn’t a watershed moment for quarterback stashing, nor is it an indication that six quarterbacks will go in the top 15 next season. It’s very unlikely that either the Falcons or the Broncos started a trend, and if they did, it’s even more unlikely that I can pick it out right now.

But what we can say is this: The realm of the quarterback is, somehow, still expanding. There are more avenues for quarterbacks to become good at the college ranks than ever before. Both Nix and Penix were transfers with at least 45 games of starting experience (as was no. 2 pick Jayden Daniels). They got more chances to get better than most quarterbacks who entered the draft before them ever did, and some of those chances came in a second environment. Coaches are smarter, wide receiver talent is way better. It’s easy to forget, but 10-15 years ago, there were about seven functional passing offenses in the college ranks at any given time. Now there are 700.

Similarly, there are more avenues for quarterbacks to find success within the NFL ranks than ever before. The advent of the Sean McVay–Kyle Shanahan coaching tree and flourishing acceptance of quarterback mobility have both made a greater number of quarterbacks NFL-viable. It’s easier to onboard these older and more experienced prospects not just because they’ve spent more time in the college ranks, but because the league has simplified and demystified many of the barriers that kept them out for so long. Pundits love to debate whether we’re in a good or bad time of quarterback development, but without question, we are in a golden age of quarterback acceptance and opportunity. Everyone’s getting a shot.

The world of quarterbacking has sacrificed its static nature for dynamic experimentation. Brock Purdy can supplant Trey Lance with eight weeks of play. Cousins can sign for $45 million a year and watch his replacement get drafted a month later. Anthony Richardson and Jayden Daniels can run their way to top 5 selections. Bo Nix can go no. 12. Penix and Nix might be Hall of Famers or total busts or anything in between—we won’t know till later. But what we know for sure is they were drafted in the absolute earliest range imaginable.

What’s next? Everything. A Tua Tagovailoa contract debate and Dak Prescott’s free agency. The return of 40-year-old Aaron Rodgers from an injury that used to end careers. The first training camp report that Penix looks better than Cousins. Some unknown fifth-round pick, yet to be made, who will start and win six games next season. We’ve long been in the Age of the Quarterback, but we’re now entering a new period in that age. A time for gambling, for boundary pushing, for new discovery. Let chaos reign.