Culture
Cousins stunned Falcons drafted Penix Jr. in first round
The Atlanta Falcons made a surprising selection taking former Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. with the No. 8 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
Among those shocked by the selection was their current projected starting quarterback, Kirk Cousins.
The Falcons called Cousins when they were on the clock to let him know they were taking Penix, his agent, Mike McCartney, told The Athletic. When Cousins signed with the team this offseason, the Falcons told him they would be drafting a quarterback in the later rounds of this draft. He was stunned when they took one in the first round, and Cousins’ biggest concern is that the pick doesn’t help the team for the upcoming season.
Part of the reason Atlanta selected Penix is that it believes it won’t have a top pick in coming drafts with Cousins under center the next few years, a team source told The Athletic.
The Falcons signed Cousins this offseason to a four-year deal worth $180 million, including $100 million guaranteed. The 35-year-old quarterback is recovering from the torn Achilles tendon he sustained in Week 8 last season. Cousins said at his introductory news conference in March that he could take drops and make passes, but if added, “I think the minute I would have to leave the pocket is where you’d say, ‘Yeah, he’s still recovering from an Achilles.’”
Opinions varied on Penix
I didn’t think the Falcons would use the eighth pick for Penix, that’s for sure, but I do think Penix was a really interesting prospect in this draft.
Two former head coaches with strong track records were among the people I spoke with during the draft process who had Penix as their No. 2 quarterback in this draft, behind Caleb Williams. It seemed like very few people agreed with this assessment.
My feel during Super Bowl week was that Penix would be gone by the middle of the first round, but the recent chatter surrounding him made me feel like that was a stretch. With quarterbacks, there can be great volatility. If a team loves one, the team should take him. And when teams feel set at the position already, they simply do not select them most of the time. That is how someone like Penix can go earlier than expected while an Aaron Rodgers waits longer than expected. — Mike Sando, National NFL writer
Required reading
(Photo: Jorge Lemus / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.
Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
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