The Falcons now have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to left-handed quarterbacks, and both have a decent amount of starting experience. According to Cameron Wolfe of NFL Network, Atlanta will have incumbent passer Michael Penix and newcomer Tua Tagovailoa work in an open competition for the QB1 position in 2026. 
The Dolphins struggled mightily to move the contract of Tagovailoa before they ultimately had to make the decision to cut him. Per Wolfe, they tried packaging money and draft picks into trade deals just so teams might be more at ease at the aspect of taking on such a heavy contractual obligation. But considering that one team, according to Jonathan Jones of NFL on CBS, claimed it would take the inclusion of a first-round pick to convince them to take on Tagovailoa’s deal, Miami had no choice in the end but to cut bait and move on to bigger fish.
The Dolphins shouldering the burden of the $54MM in guaranteed money still owed to Tagovailoa gave the 28-year-old quarterback the freedom to not worry about the financial aspect of his next contract. With guaranteed money on its way to the bank, Tagovailoa could accept a deal for the league minimum if that’s what it would take to land in the best situation for him.
Utilizing that freedom, Tagovailoa landed in Atlanta, where Wolfe reports new head coach Kevin Stefanski sold him on the idea of being in an open competition for the starting quarterback job with Penix. Luckily for Stefanski, this year’s quarterback battle should be a bit easier to handle than last year’s in Cleveland. The late-season battle between rookies Dillon Gabriel and Shedeur Sanders posed a unique problem. Stefanski wanted each rookie to have the opportunity to make their NFL debuts in offenses designed specifically for them. Though they played in similar offensive systems in college, the two played with two different playing styles and threw the football with opposite hands.
In Atlanta, Stefanski now, at least, has his two quarterbacks throwing from the same side of their body. Both have starting experience but, for both, that experience came in a different offensive system that what Stefanski was doing in Cleveland. The change in leadership at the top of the coaching staff helped ease news of the competition to Penix. Instead of being told by a coach that had given him a starting job that he was losing it, Penix’s new head coach informed him of the team’s move to acquire Tagovailoa, per Wolfe, and told him to come ready to compete, when healthy.
Tagovailoa showed an incredibly high ceiling during his time in Miami, throwing for a league-leading 4,624 passing yards in 2023 and completing a league-high 72.9 percent of his passes in 11 games the next season, but his 2025 campaign is one he’ll surely want to forget. He’ll be ready to move on with a focus on utilizing a new group of weapons to beat out his incumbent competition and prove he can still be a starter in the NFL.
After getting slow played into a starting role in his rookie year, Penix displayed a safe but tepid offense through 11 games as a starter before tearing his ACL. The team hopes introducing Tagovailoa into the mix as competition will jumpstart their hopeful franchise quarterback into a higher gear, once he returns to full health. They expect Penix to be cleared to compete sometime in the offseason, at which point they will begin the competition to see who will be named the best left-handed quarterback in Atlanta since Michael Vick.