Atlanta Falcons May Miss Out On Top Edge Defender, Again

By Charles McDonald | Feb 20, 2015

It feels like the Atlanta Falcons have needed to upgrade their pass rush for centuries now. The team hasn’t had a reliable pass rusher since they parted ways with John Abraham after the 2012 season. Coincidentally, that was also the last year they made the playoffs.

The Falcons ranked 30th in sacks last season and 29th the year before, compiling an abysmal 54 sacks over that span. To put that into perspective, the Buffalo Bills tallied 54 sacks in 2014 alone, and the division rival Carolina Panthers racked up 60 sacks as a team in 2013.

They need to find a player with the potential to be an elite edge defender, but unfortunately Atlanta might be saying “déjà vu” when the 8th pick rolls around during the NFL draft.

Last year there were two premium edge rushers in the draft: South Carolina’s Jadeveon Clowney and Buffalo’s Khalil Mack. Atlanta reached out to Houston to see what the asking price would be for the number one pick, but determined it was too high. They put their hopes on landing Khalil Mack with the sixth pick in the draft.

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For a few picks, it looked like he could fall to them after Jacksonville took Blake Bortles with the 3rd overall pick. Then the Raiders did what they haven’t done in years: take the best player available. Mack fell right into Oakland’s lap with the fifth pick, leaving the Falcons one pick away from adding a cornerstone player to their defense.

There’s a very real chance they miss out on one of the top guys this coming April.

The general consensus is that there are three edge defenders in this draft class worthy of a top ten pick: Randy Gregory, Shane Ray, and Dante Fowler. The Falcons have a serious chance of missing out on all three of these players, especially if Tennessee decides to take a non-quarterback.

Lets run through a plausible scenario that would cause Atlanta to miss out on all of these players.

1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – Jameis Winston

2. Tennessee Titans – Leonard Williams

3. Jacksonville Jaguars – Randy Gregory

4. Oakland Raiders – Amari Cooper

5. Washington Redskins – Shane Ray

6. New York Jets – Marcus Mariota

7. Chicago Bears – Dante Fowler

8. Atlanta Falcons – ??

A lot of teams at the top need edge defenders; it’s extremely possible that the top tier edge defenders will be out of reach by the time Atlanta’s pick comes around. If this scenario were to play out, the Falcons would have some serious decision making to do.

Should they reach and take a flier on a guy like Alvin Dupree or Vic Beasley?

Or fill a different need with a premium player?

Hopefully these are questions the Falcons won’t have to ask on draft day. The window to make a championship run with Matt Ryan is shrinking by the week; if the Falcons are going to get there, they desperately need to upgrade their pass rush.