FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Atlanta Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski wants his quarterbacks to hear one voice, at least metaphorically.The message, no matter which coach is conveying it, always needs to be the same, Stefanski says. The actual voice is most often Alex Van Pelt, a 20-year NFL coaching veteran who is one of five coaches on Atlanta’s staff to have called plays in the league.“You’ve got a lot of guys that have been in high-profile positions, and that’s good,” Van Pelt said. “It takes a village to raise a quarterback, and I feel like we have a great village.”Van Pelt has helped raise plenty of quarterbacks in his seven professional stops, from Trent Edwards to Josh Freeman to Aaron Rodgers to Andy Dalton and Matthew Stafford to half a dozen quarterbacks in Cleveland the first time he worked for Stefanski. (Atlanta’s quarterbacks have seen a lot of Rodgers, Dalton and Stafford highlights this spring, Van Pelt said.)Now Van Pelt is in charge of helping the Falcons decide whether Michael Penix Jr. or Tua Tagovailoa will be their quarterback this fall.“All the coaches have been doing an amazing job making sure we’re all in this together,” Penix said, “but I would say I talk to AVP the most.”Stefanski, offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, passing game coordinator Tanner Engstrand and assistant quarterbacks coach Jordan Reid also spend lots of time in the quarterback meetings, Penix said. The Falcons, ideally, will be able to name a starter “with a few weeks left” in training camp, Van Pelt said.“I think it jumps out at you,” the coach said. “At some point, you’ve been coaching long enough, and you can see a guy take a lead in a competition. That’s the natural flow of things. It’ll come down to who’s playing the best ball.”The competition hasn’t begun in earnest yet because Penix is still rehabbing the torn ACL that ended his 2025 season in Week 11. He still has not been cleared for 11-on-11 practice work, but Stefanski suggested Monday that he could be in time for next week’s mandatory minicamp. Throughout OTAs, the Falcons gave Penix more seven-on-seven work than Tagovailoa to try to keep the overall snaps as even as possible.“Really, there’s no competition until we can evaluate him equally,” Van Pelt said.Like Stefanski, Van Pelt believes accuracy is the most important trait for a quarterback.“I mean, you can have guys open, you get them schemed open, you can run great routes, and if you can’t make accurate throws, it is all for naught,” he said.Van Pelt believes Penix is a naturally accurate passer despite his career 59 percent completion rate, the coach said.“The biggest thing, I think, with accuracy is the rhythm and the tempo of your footwork and your drops, making sure that everything’s in alignment with whatever that route is you’re throwing,” Van Pelt said.Much of what the Falcons quarterbacks have worked on during OTAs are the mechanics of drops in the pocket. Atlanta has four different dropback styles out of the shotgun and three from under center in addition to the play-action plan, said Van Pelt, whose background (like Stefanski’s) is in the West Coast offense.“We have certain route trees, and then we’ll tie certain footwork in with those exact routes,” he said. “It matches different routes with different depths. We have a big sign in our room that says, ‘Trust your feet.’ If your feet are right, then you’re gonna make good decisions. And when you get in trouble, it’s when you don’t trust your feet.”Despite the focus on accuracy, Penix and Tagovailoa will be graded on much more than their completion percentage, Van Pelt said.“That’s a baby piece of it,” he said. “Everything that we ask them to do operationally, that’s as big a piece as anything — getting up and getting the ball snapped in the right play, and then the other pieces come with it.”While Penix and Tagovailoa are competing for the starting job, veteran Trevor Siemian and undrafted free agent Jack Strand are competing for the No. 3 spot. Siemian was held out of Monday’s practice, allowing Strand to take snaps behind Tagovailoa in 11-on-11 drills.“He’s a big, strapping young lad from up north, big strong arm, he can move around and do some things,” Van Pelt said of Strand. “Really proud of him. I’ve been really impressed. For a rookie to come from Minnesota State Moorhead and step onto a pro field and throw balls to Drake London is pretty cool for him.”The Falcons will hold two practice days next week for minicamp and then break until late July, when training camp begins and the quarterback competition enters its stretch run.“The room’s great, a lot of talent in there,” Van Pelt said, “obviously some old, some young, but it’s been a great spring.”