Photo by Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsWhoever Starts Sunday Starts Thursday
Tuesday gave the Falcons two club documents with two different quarterbacks on top and no decision. The one being made today covers Carolina on Sunday and Green Bay four days later.
Kevin Stefanski is not picking Sunday's quarterback today. He is picking Sunday's and Thursday's, and Tuesday's headlines counted one.
Tuesday produced two club documents with two different quarterbacks on top. Josh Kendall of The Athletic posted Tuesday morning that the media advisory had gone from "Starting QB press conference" to "QB Cooper Rush press conference." By afternoon the club's unofficial Week 2 depth chart had Tua Tagovailoa first, Rush second, and called the quarterbacks unchanged from Week 1. In between, Steve Wyche of NFL Network checked with the team and was told it "listed Rush based on no new information." His word for Rush: "placeholder."
Four outlets — Pro Football Talk, Heavy, Yardbarker and The Falcoholic — read a Sunday starter out of the edit anyway. Stefanski, Monday: "I really don't have an update yet."
None of that is the decision. The decision is who takes the first-team snaps today.
The calendar: Carolina at Atlanta, Sunday, Sept 20. Atlanta at Green Bay, Thursday, Sept 24, four days later. New Orleans, Monday, Oct 5, eleven days after that.
Nobody installs a different quarterback on a short week. That is my read, not a report. Four days is not an install.
Whoever starts Sunday starts Thursday. The call resolves at Lambeau on Sept 24 and gets graded here Sept 25.
Ian Rapoport's window for Michael Penix Jr., via Bleacher Report, was "about Week 2 or 3." Sunday or Thursday. The insider's window and the short week are the same two games. The eleven days after Green Bay are the first place a different name fits, and that is my calendar, not the club's.
Miles wrote Tuesday that Wednesday's report "names participation, not a starter." When the club puts a name on it, read it twice: once for Carolina, once for Lambeau.
The Tilt
Atlanta's Sunday starter is its Thursday starter at Lambeau, whoever Stefanski names today.
— Dex Ponce
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