FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- One of the first orders of business for new Atlanta Falcons quarterbacks coach Alex Van Pelt was to hang a big sign in the QB room.
"Trust your feet," it reads.
If there is one main focus new head coach Kevin Stefanski and his staff have accentuated above all others so far with their quarterbacks, it is just that: footwork. Stefanski, Van Pelt and company want Tua Tagovailoa, Michael Penix Jr., Trevor Siemian and Jack Strand to be in sync from bottom to top, sure-footed and steady from their foundations.
Van Pelt has even shown film of quarterbacks he has worked with in the past, like Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford and Andy Dalton. Those three have vastly different skill sets. But they have one specific thing in common, according to Van Pelt: they are elite with their feet.
"If your feet are right, then you're going to make good decisions," Van Pelt said. "When you get in trouble, when you don't trust your feet, you hang too long and you're off and then [you throw] bad balls or interceptions."
Van Pelt referred to footwork as "a huge part of us." It's a West Coast offense philosophy, he said, and imparted to him and Stefanski as part of the Gary Kubiak coaching tree. Different routes have different dropbacks in the new Falcons offense. For instance, Van Pelt said the team's new offensive scheme has four different dropbacks with the quarterback in the shotgun formation.
"It's ingrained in our room and that's how we teach," Van Pelt said.
Penix said what Stefanski, Van Pelt and others have keyed in on isn't necessarily a restructurion of his mechanics. It's more of a reinforcement of the basics that quarterbacks already know.
"I feel like it's just a lot of time put into it," Penix said of footwork. "It's always something that's being pointed out in routes. ... If you're off time and it's always like they let you know, 'Hey, you got to pick up your feet or take your time a little bit on this drop, you got to work through your progression.' Just stuff like that. So, I feel like it's just something that is talked about more than it was."
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No one is quite sure who will be the Falcon's Week 1 starter at quarterback. Tagovailoa has a clear advantage at the moment. Penix is not yet fully back from left ACL surgery last November -- he hasn't been cleared to participate in 11-on-11 team sessions during practice yet. Penix believes that will change when training camp begins later this month and he is still targeting being completely healthy by Week 1. But certainly, nothing is guaranteed.
Siemian, a veteran likely to be the team's No. 3 quarterback, has also been sidelined with an injury. Strand, an undrafted free agent out of Division II Minnesota State-Moorhead, has been getting second-team reps in 11-on-11 sessions.
Stefanski and Van Pelt have been clear that there can't really be a full-fledged quarterback competition until Tagovailoa and Penix are on an even playing field. That means Penix being 100% and cleared for everything. Tagovailoa said he's still treating it like a competition regardless.
"I think competition is going to be there, whether it is said or whether it's not said," he said. "This is the NFL. 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 [or on the field], we all got to take our jobs serious in whatever capacity we can do it to."
Stefanski said accuracy is the quarterback trait that he values most. And much of that, he said, comes from the ground up.
"I would say the biggest thing that they harp on is playing within the rhythm, the timing of your footwork," Tagovailoa said. "So, making sure your feet are right."
Stefanski said he and his staff are "disciples of Bill Walsh" and Kubiak was someone who always talked about the feet as the quarterback's clock.
"You don't have a stopwatch back there when you play quarterback, but you do have your feet," Stefanski said.
It's all about timing, depending on routes and where the receivers will be, and the "timing only comes from the footwork of the quarterback," Stefanski said.
"Every single team in the NFL does versions of this and certain routes have certain drops that are matched up with it, and not all the drops are created equal," Stefanski said. ... "It's just hanging your hat on what you believe, but it's something that we believe in. It's something that we preach. It's something that we teach and it's certainly something that guys understand is important to play in that position."