Falcons training camp 2025: Day 3 recap and practice notes

Skirmishes dominating the conversation on Day 3 of camp, Michael Penix continued looking good and we finally got a glance at the kicker battle.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky this morning. Genuinely, walking up to camp today amid another frenzy of a crowd packing out the hill for a second consecutive day, there wasn’t even any semblance of reprieve from the unrelenting and sweltering late July Georgia sun.

It’s been like that all three days of camp so far, but it hasn’t discouraged Falcons fans from making the trek to see their team hit the practice field, as the scenes on the hill today similar to what we saw yesterday.

Following the usual start to practice — a walkthrough, some stretching and then drills against air — we got an action packed day, with standouts on both offense and defense as well as some serious tension in the air.

Here are some observations from Day 3 of Falcons Training Camp this year!

James Pearce Jr. sets off a couple of skirmishes

The main story of the day was an eruption of emotion in the middle of 11-on-11 drills between the first team offense and second team defense. Rookie OLB James Pearce Jr. got into a little bit of a back and forth with C Ryan Neuzil before players on both offense and defense joined in the scuffle.

Pearce went from Neuzil right to LG Matthew Bergeron as a little bit of shoving happened and Bergeron lost his helmet. Some heated words were exchanged as well.

Just one play later, the offensive and defensive guys were right back into skirmish mode, with Pearce again being right in the middle of it, this time with RT Kaleb McGary. I am not sure what set either of these off, but defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said in the post practice press conference that the violence “went a little too far:”

Michael Penix looks sharp and pushes the ball downfield

After being plagued with pass catcher mistakes in yesterday’s practice, QB Michael Penix Jr. dissected the defense with those mistakes cleaned up today.

Penix went a combined 13-16 in the 11-on-11 period as well as red zone drills. He set the tone early with a deep shot home run to WR Ray Ray McCloud down the left sideline on the first throw of scrimmage. McCloud was, however, chased down by CB Keith Taylor who forced a fumble from behind.

Penix wasn’t afraid of pushing the ball downfield, as he never is, with six of his 13 completions going 10+ yards downfield, by my count. He went 4-4 in the red zone portion with three touchdown passes — one to McCloud, one to WR Drake London and one to WR Chris Blair, on a play where MPJ beautifully stepped up in the pocket to evade the two edge rushers.

Of his three incompletions, two were on home run passes deep down the field and one was on a pass over the middle of the field where TE Kyle Pitts Sr. fell down after getting his feet tangled with the covering CB Natrone Brooks.

Defense gets the better of Kirk Cousins

After going 9-10 day yesterday, QB Kirk Cousins had a much more difficult go of it on Sunday. I tallied his completions at 6-10 today with five of those six completions being of the dink-and-dunk variety, and just one pass going at least 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Cousins failed to find the end zone at all in red zone drills. At one point he did complete a pass for a would-be touchdown to WR Nick Nash, but that was well after DT Ruke Orhorhoro got into the backfield for what was credited as a sack.

In fairness to Cousins, he was under heavy pressure all day as the second team offensive line was having a lot of trouble against the first team front. In addition to Ruke’s sack, it looked like OLB Arnold Ebikete got to Cousins twice and that OLB Khalid Kareem got another sack today after his two yesterday.

James Pearce also got into the backfield and batted a Cousins pass down when the second teams were scrimmaging against each other.

Lenny Krieg impresses in the kicking battle

We finally got to see some of the kicking battle play out, with post NFL combine signing K Lenny Krieg and established veteran K Younghoe Koo taking the field and getting five field goal attempts each.

Krieg was as impressive as he could have been, nailing every one of his attempts and booming each one through the upright. He nailed two kicks from beyond 50 yards, including a 56-yard attempt which looked like it could have been good from 60+.

Koo, meanwhile, hit on four of his five attempts but missed on the longest attempt I saw, from about 48 yards. He was not given an attempt beyond that mark, and ended up hitting on four attempts from inside 50 yards.

If Krieg continues kicking like this, we may have a real battle brewing at the kicker position.

Other Notes

• We once again got more mixture between 3-4 and the 4-3 looks. When the starters line up in the 3-4, it continues to be DT David Onyemata lining up at nose tackle.
• In the 3-4 look, the starting unit along the defense as of now, in addition to Onyemata at nose tackle, looks to be Ruke Orhorhoro and DT Morgan Fox at interior defensive ends and OLB Leonard Floyd lined up with Ebikete along the edge. When the team goes to a 4-3, Floyd and Ebikete line up as traditional defensive ends. Khalid Kareem also got some looks at DE in the 4-3 with the first team, in rotation.
• After missing all of 11-on-11s yesterday, Kyle Pitts got some work in the early scrimmage but was not part of it at the later point or red zone drills. He caught two passes and at one point was targeted by Penix three consecutive times.
• Pearce mostly worked with the second team and rookie OLB Jalon Walker did not participate in practice at all today. Ulbrich said Walker was “working on his body” but that he would be alright.
• Rookie S Xavier Watts went back to the second team today after working mostly with the starters yesterday, with S Jordan Fuller reclaiming his spot with the ones. Likewise, it was CB Dee Alford working more with the starters than rookie CB Billy Bowman Jr. Natrone Brooks and CB Lamar Jackson look to be the main outside corners with the second team.
• With Pitts not playing much in scrimmages the last couple of days, TE Teagan Quintoriano got some looks with the starters as he looks to be a real contender to make the roster.

That’s it from us for Day 3 of camp. It’s an off day tomorrow before the pads finally get put on come Tuesday.