RP Clips: London Calling! The Michael Penix Effect

Matt Harmon (0:00)

This is Reception Perception, The Show. Now, James Koh and Matt Harmon.

James Koh (0:06)

We didn't have a chance to talk about Drake London.

194 receiving yards in his first game with Michael Penix. I mean, they get functional quarterback play here, and dude, Drake London is going off, right? So like, I love this for Drake London, I love it for Drake London fantasy managers, but just overall, it's good when football is good in Atlanta, man, and I don't know if the football is good, but I tell you what, they're a fun team to watch.

Matt Harmon (0:35)

Well, obviously, the Packers are horrible. That should be noted as we get into this discussion about Drake London. What a disaster are the Green Bay Packers at this point. But for Drake London, after just one game with Michael Penix, two of the most disgusting offensive performances you could ever imagine Cooper Rush offers. And look, I say that about Cooper Rush with respect and understanding that he didn't want this, all right? He's the guy that's like, oh, no, I became important at work and it ruined my life. That was Cooper Rush in the first two weeks. He signs there in August just to hope he can collect a paycheck and the whole deal and then suddenly he's forced to start.

Not great. That's not what you want. And it was obviously a disaster. And as I said on the show last week, people were quite mean to Cooper Rush on his Wikipedia page. Not ideal, not what you want there. All right, so we're moving forward now. We've got Michael Penix back in the mix. And that first part of that game, I was watching Michael Penix thinking, oh my God, like this does not look good for him.

He's wearing, I think, two knee braces, right? It's just, you feel like it was a little shaky to start for Penix.

And then he settles in. And once again, he, what do we say? Like, just get the ball to your best freaking player as many times as possible and as many ways as possible. And credit to Kevin Stefanski and Tommy Reese. They did that with Drake London. He was in the slot on 30 percent. You know, you want him somewhere between 28 and 30 percent. You never, he's never going to be like a full, full slot player, but you want to get him in the mix there. You want to get him these free releases and these layups. I think they did a pretty good job with that. A little more motion. I thought to kind of get him loose and he's running a lot of these in cuts that you want to see, like overs and quick slants and things of that nature. But they're also kind of manufacturing touches for him at the line of scrimmage. And then you get these explosive plays down the field, which we'll come back to in just a second. So after all that, James, after all the panic in week two and week one and the whole deal, Drake London now sits second in the NFL in yards per outrun among wide receivers that have run 50 plus routes this year behind only Jax's Vista Jigba, the efficiency cheat code. Yes, yes.

James Koh (2:41)

No.

Matt Harmon (2:42)

I just looked this up today.

I just posted it not long before we got on this show here. I mean, you look at the number. Number one is JSN at 4.35, which is just absolutely berserk. He's got JSN has a first down on 25%, just about 25% of his routes, which is absolutely nutso stuff. He's an efficiency print fest because he's an elite player. Drake London is second in yards per out at 3.86. So, and again, Penix, is he great? I don't know, but just he's functional. And he knows that he understands the assignment. Like when he gets in there, he's got eyes for number five, the best player in the passing game by a considerable amount. And he targeted on him on 40% of his routes. He had a 44% target share to Drake London in this game.

That is the goal for Michael Penix. Just get the football to Drake London and good things are probably going to happen. Obviously, the fact that the run game was unbelievable against Green Bay. We'll come back to the run game in a second, but obviously, that was great. But the other part of this was the passing game and just how amazing it was to see Drake London really finally get going here and show everybody what a great player he is.

James Koh (3:55)