Tua's Brutally Honest Verdict on Falcons' Ugly Opener: 'Not Even Up to Par'

ATLANTA — Tua Tagovailoa's first game in a Falcons uniform did not go according to plan. And he's not pretending otherwise.

After Atlanta got clobbered 27-7 by the Denver Broncos on Friday night, the new Falcons QB didn't hide his frustration. Sure, it was only preseason. Sure, he barely played. None of that mattered to Tua.

'Frustrated and disappointed at the way things happened tonight as we went out there,' Tagovailoa said. 'Definitely not up to standard, not even up to par.'

A rough two-series cameo

Tagovailoa only got two drives before taking a seat. He completed 3 of 5 passes for 22 yards — with all four of his targets going to tight end Kyle Pitts Sr. It was a quiet stat line, but the most telling moment came on his second snap, when he coughed up a fumble out of shotgun and had to fall on the ball.

That mistake, he believes, knocked the offense completely out of rhythm. Denver rolled off 24 unanswered points before Atlanta finally cracked the scoreboard.

'Just thinking about it, what we put out there is not a reflection of the hard work that we've put in the first two weeks into training camp and it does no justice for the work that our coaches, as well, have implemented,' Tua said. 'So, it starts with me. I got to be better with that. I thought off of that [second] play, [things] kind of got out of the rhythm.'

The veteran signal-caller finished his night after nine total plays and just one first down.

QB1 battle remains murky

Tagovailoa is technically battling Michael Penix Jr. for the starting job, but it's a lopsided fight at the moment. Penix has yet to be cleared to practice fully and can't do 11-on-11 team sessions, leaving Tua ahead mostly by default.

And he knows Friday didn't help his case.

'I'm competing,' Tagovailoa said. 'I'm wanting to go out there for points on the board, not go out there and we'll go three-and-out, three-and-out — not be able to perform to the level that I know I'm able to do. So always looking at everything as a competition, but just got to be better.'

Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski cautioned against reading too much into the tiny sample size, pointing out the plan was always to get Tua just a series or two. Still, he admitted the whole offense has work to do.

'I evaluate the entire offense in that regard,' Stefanski said. 'So, didn't move the ball well enough as an offense. Certainly, there's some things that we can clean up. We did drop a snap out there. So, those are little plays that we will continue to work on. But hard to give a grade on that fewest amount of ... sample size.'

A new era still finding its footing

Tagovailoa and Stefanski are both new to Atlanta after the franchise overhauled its front office, hiring GM Ian Cunningham and president of football Matt Ryan. The Falcons brought Tua in on a one-year, $1.3 million deal after he was cut by the Miami Dolphins.

So this is all still very early. But Tua's standard — even in the preseason — isn't dropping.