Kevin Stefanski Reveals Tua Tagovailoa's Biggest Early Win With Falcons

FLOWERY BRANCH – The Atlanta Falcons are set to launch a quarterback battle this summer during training camp, pending Michael Penix Jr.'s clearance. His competition, newcomer Tua Tagovailoa, has seemingly established an early lead.

Tagovailoa, a longtime veteran and former Miami Dolphins quarterback, took nearly all of the team reps during the Falcons’ offseason program. Penix, meanwhile, was limited to the 7-on-7 drills while he recovers from the torn ACL that ended his second NFL season. He managed to make a good impression on Kevin Stefanski, slowly earning the trust of his new head coach.

“He’s done a really nice job of learning – a lot of this is that he's been around a lot of football and he knows football and he's been around some great schemes,” Stefanski said during the franchise’s mandatory minicamp in June. “He's been around some great teachers, guys that I have a ton of respect for. As he's going to learn this system, he's coming from a place of having a great institutional knowledge of offensive football.”

Stefanski, while impressed with what Tagovailoa has brought to the franchise thus far, explained that the veteran quarterback has done a good job of putting his experience into practice with his new team and drawing on what he learned in Miami.

“He's learning, and he's [saying], ‘Hey, you may have called this the last six years, we're going to call this,’” Stefanski said about Tagovailoa. “Some of the things that we're going to do with our formations and our motions are a little bit different than what you're doing. I think he's done a great job of attacking the learning portion of this and then just getting comfortable in the scheme, getting comfortable in the drills, getting comfortable with your teammates.

“It's something that when you're new, you just have to work at it. And I've seen a young man who's really working at it.”

But being new is a challenge in and of itself. Tagovailoa has been tasked with learning an entirely new system, all while competing for the starting role and earning his teammates' respect as a potential starting quarterback.

All of these things, Stefanski said, are things that Tagovailoa is taking in stride.

“I think leadership is just being authentic to who you are every single day,” he said. “I see that from Tua. I see that from our guys. I know playing the quarterback position, there's some things that come with that in terms of leadership. You're the one talking in the huddle. There's only one voice in there. So that's natural for our quarterback room. All those guys have done that their whole life. But in terms of leadership for a football team, I think I've witnessed all of our guys just be true to who they are. That's the best way to get the most out of your teammates.”

Despite the seeming advantage that Tagovailoa holds, Stefanski made it clear that jobs are not decided in June – that will come in training camp, assuming Penix gets the green light, that is. The veteran may have the early edge simply because he is healthy enough to take first-team reps, but the competition will not truly begin until Penix is cleared. Until then, the veteran's biggest victory may simply be earning Stefanski's trust.

Tagovailoa, though, understands the competition is ongoing.

“This is the NFL,” he said. “You're either coming out there to compete, or you're not. I think we've all been in this league for some time to know this isn't something that you can walk through. This is something that, whether it's in a meeting room, we’ve all got to take our job serious in whatever capacity we can do it to – and so I look at it all as a competition.”

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