Michael Penix Jr. just got into the NFL and is shocking the league without even stepping on the gridiron field. The Atlanta Falcons QB was spotted by a Bleacher Report correspondent, and he asked the young star about the quarterbacks who were his favorite and influenced him the most. Unfortunately, some of the most obvious and expected players did not make it to Michael’s list.

“Who is your personal favorite five quarterbacks of all time?” asked the BR reporter to the Falcons’ backup QB. His response was a mix of old-school and new-school QBs, but surprisingly names like Tom Brady were not his first choice.

“Mike Vick, Teddy Bridgewater, Pat Mahomes, Warren Moon, and Lamar [Jackson],” said the former quarterback of the Washington Huskies, as he stepped into the league after playing in the CFP National Championship against the Michigan Wolverines’ JJ McCarthy. But there might be more to his relationship with Tom Brady.

Recently, Jay-Z and Tom Brady hosted a luncheon for the NFL rookies and Michael Penix Jr. was missing from the scene. While people like Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, Malik Nabers, Bo Nix, and Brock Bowers were all present at the lunch table, Penix Jr. was nowhere to be found at the event specially held for the rookie QBs of 2024.

$500k or dinner with Jay-Z? It looks like these rookies got the best of both worlds as they would easily make more than the said amount and got some advice from Brady and the celebrated rapper. Jay-Z might have taught the rookies a thing or two about dealing with the “hard knock life” that football entails.

But while there were no statements from Jay-Z about the meet, the 7x Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady made sure that every rookie in the room had something to take home with them. Brady mentioned in his Instagram post that he wouldn’t be where he is without the proper guidance of his mentors.

Tom Brady taking time off to get up and speed!

Brady took to Instagram and shared a few snippets of his time in the luncheon hosted by Fanatics owner Michael Rubin. He wrote in the captions, “I’ll always cherish the opportunity to talk to these young men who are about to start a monumental chapter of their lives. I would never be in the place I am today without the incredible people and mentors that came into my life at the right time and at the right place.”

The future Hall of Famer mentioned that he has a “pay it forward” mentality where he’s just passing on what he knows to the emerging talent who have the potential to be at his level someday. One of those photos had Drake Maye posing with Brady, who is the successor of the QB in the Patriots.

Drake Maye is picking up after Tom Brady and there are a lot of expectations from him as he replaces Mac Jones, who started well with the Patriots and fell off gradually. Jones will now be playing 2 string quarterback beside Trevor Lawrence for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

But coming back to Drake Maye, he doesn’t want to follow Tom Brady’s legacy because he knows that those shoes are too big to fill. Instead, he will choose to carve his own lane. “Tom Brady’s the G.O.A.T.,” Maye said shortly after being drafted.

He added, “It’s easy to say that. He’s the best that ever played this game. I’m not going to be Tom Brady. So, I’m just going to try to be Drake Maye, and from there, I’m just trying to learn from him, hopefully get to know him a little bit. Other than that, just try to soak it up, be a sponge and try to learn all I can from him. He’s the man of that town.”

Hopefully, some of what Brady said stays with these rookies forever and they display excellence on the field and off it!