Falcons give major timeline to announce QB1 winner between Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa

The Atlanta Falcons have made some surprising roster decisions over the last week, but it appears that most of those questions have now been cleared up. One major question remains: who will be the starting quarterback next weekend?

The job was supposed to belong to Tua Tagovailoa, but it is far from guaranteed. Instead, he has struggled during the preseason and continued to show some red flags.

“And while the performance was an improvement over his brutal debut in the first week of the preseason, it still wasn't his best body of work. Tagovailoa badly needed a big performance to prove to this coaching staff that he's worthy of being the starter over Michael Penix Jr., which didn't happen. Instead of taking a step in the right direction as a starting QB decision looms, the 28-year-old's return to Hard Rock Stadium rehashed some old issues and confirmed the Tua Tagovailoa we saw in Miami is nothing but a distant memory--especially since he can't seem to shake some ongoing red flags,” Blogging Dirty’s Jason Kandel wrote.

A major reason Atlanta has not made its QB1 decision is that the Falcons are waiting to see the status of Michael Penix Jr.

“The Falcons wanna take a look this week at Michael Penix and see how he responds,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter said.

That should provide a major indication of who will ultimately get the starting job. At this point, it appears to be Penix if he is healthy. However, Atlanta has already established a timeline for when the decision will be announced.

The Falcons announced their press conferences for next week, and one of the scheduled appearances will be from the team's starting quarterback on Wednesday. That essentially means Atlanta will reveal its QB1 by Wednesday.

The Falcons media schedule says the starting quarterback will speak on Wednesday so I'm guessing we'll have an answer by then. pic.twitter.com/p59xy28Gsi

The Falcons have remained relatively quiet throughout this process, seemingly trying not to give too much information away. With most other teams already having announced their starters, this is an unusual position for the organization to be in this close to the regular season.

The hope was that Tagovailoa could take the job by the horns while Penix recovered, but that does not appear to be happening. With Wednesday approaching, Atlanta is getting closer to finally deciding who will lead the offense into the season.

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