HEADLINES

Atlanta Falcons News & Rumors

Lions Trade No. 111 To Falcons

April 27th, 2019 at 11:35am CST by Ben Levine

The Falcons have acquired No. 111 from the Lions, reports ESPN’s Field Yates (via Twitter). Atlanta will send Detroit No. 117 and No. 186. ESPN’s Michael Rothstein was the first to report the trade (via Twitter).

The Falcons have used the pick on Ohio State cornerback Kendall Sheffield. The defensive back spent a redshirt season at Alabama, transferred to Blinn College, and then moved to Ohio State in 2017. He ended up seeing the field for 27 games between two seasons.

Sheffield is also an accomplished track athlete, with his hurdling prowess earning him the Gatorade Texas Boys Track & Field Athlete of the Year award in 2014.

Rams Trade No. 31 To Falcons

April 25th, 2019 at 10:46pm CST by Dallas Robinson

The Rams have traded the No. 31 pick to the Falcons. Los Angeles will get picks No. 45 and No. 79, while Atlanta will receive No. 31 and No. 203.

Atlanta will select Washington offensive tackle Kaleb McGary. For the second time in the first round, the Falcons will use a first-round pick on a position that they’d already fortified in free agency. Atlanta signed guards Jamon Brown and James Carpenter but used their initial first-round pick on fellow interior lineman Chris Lindstrom. After extending right tackle Ty Sambrailo, the Falcons will now add competition in McGary.

Draft Rumors: Bush, Redskins, Rams

April 25th, 2019 at 9:04am CST by Rory Parks

Let’s round up the latest draft rumors in advance of tonight’s main event:

  • We heard several days ago that the Falcons were interested in trading into the Top 10, and that they had their sights set on defensive linemen like Christian Wilkins and offensive linemen. Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network confirms that Atlanta is indeed interested in moving up, but his sources say the club’s target is actually linebacker Devin Bush (Twitter link). Per Pelissero, the Falcons would need to leapfrog the Broncos, who hold the No. 10 overall pick, to assure themselves of landing Bush.
  • Despite all of the rumors suggesting that the Redskins are interested in making a big trade up into the Top 5, Pro Football Talk says that all of the calls that team president Bruce Allen are making are just an example of Allen being Allen and that Washington doesn’t really have a desire to make a move (Twitter link).
  • Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets that the Rams, who hold the No. 31 overall pick in tonight’s draft, have received a number of calls from teams wanting to trade into the back end of the first round. First-rounders, of course, can be kept under club control for five years instead of four.
  • As Pelissero notes in a separate tweet, the teams that have shown the most interest in trading down from their current first-round slots are the Jets (No.3), Lions (No. 8), Dolphins (No. 13), Seahawks (Nos. 21 & 29), and Rams (No. 31).
  • If Kyler Murray should start to fall down the draft board, he may end up having a better financial future in baseball. As Albert Breer of SI.com notes, MLB’s Oakland A’s have offered him a $14MM “sweetener” on top of the $4.6MM bonus he was already due after the club drafted him last year, for a total of $18.66MM. That number would land between the 10th and 11th overall picks in tonight’s NFL draft, so if Murray ends up falling that far, teams are concerned that he would return to the diamond. But Breer still thinks that Murray will be the No. 1 overall pick tonight.
  • Breer calls Mississippi State defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons the most interesting prospect in the draft. He is one of the top defensive players in his class, but the troubling video showing him striking a woman in high school, along with his ACL tear, have completely removed him from some teams’ draft boards. But there is still a good chance that he will be selected in the first round tonight.
  • The Panthers and Vikings are both very serious about addressing their needs along the offensive line with early draft picks, as Breer notes in a separate piece. Both clubs used a high number of top-30 visits on O-linemen.
  • LSU cornerback Andraez “Greedy” Williams is perhaps the most talented corner in the draft, but as Breer notes, he comes with plenty of red flags concerning his toughness, work ethic, and personality. He did not make a single pre-draft visit, and despite his upside, he could slip out of the first round.

Contract Details: Roethlisberger, Hageman

April 24th, 2019 at 9:54pm CST by Ben Levine

A look at the details on recent deals from around the NFL:

Falcons Pick Up Keanu Neal’s Option

April 24th, 2019 at 3:01pm CST by Zachary Links

The Falcons exercised the fifth-year option on safety Keanu Neal’s contract, per a team announcement. This was yet another no-brainer fifth-year option decision. 

The 23-year-old (24 in July) has started in all of his games since entering the league as the No. 17 overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. In 2017, Neal earned a Pro Bowl nod after racking up 113 tackles, six passes defensed, four tackles for a loss, and one interception. His much anticipated follow-up was wiped out by an ACL tear last year, but he’s set to get back to work in 2019.

A fun fact from the Falcons’ press release: Since the fifth-year option for first-round picks was instituted in 2011, the Falcons have exercised the fifth-year option on each player they’ve selected in the first round. Overall, that’s a good indicator of the Falcons’ success rate inside of the first 32 picks.

Click here for a full rundown of every fifth-year option decision on 2016 first-round picks.

Falcons Considering Trade Up, Could Be Eyeing No. 8 Overall Pick

April 23rd, 2019 at 8:29pm CST by Rory Parks
  • Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports continues to hear that the Lions and Jets are interested in trading down from their current first-round slots, and he sees the Falcons as a potential partner for Detroit (Twitter link). Interestingly, Breer hears the same [SOURCE LINK]. Clemson DT Christian Wilkins could be the target if Atlanta wants to move up, though Breer says the team has been “nosing around” offensive linemen as well as defensive linemen.

Grady Jarrett Signs Franchise Tender

April 22nd, 2019 at 5:55pm CST by Sam Robinson

One key piece of Falcons business wrapped up Monday. Grady Jarrett signed his franchise tender, the team announced.

The fifth-year defensive tackle is back in the fold and now attached to a $15.209MM salary. This may be the prelude to an extension. While nothing appears to be imminent, this is a good sign for those prospects. The Falcons have just more than three months to finalize an extension with Jarrett.

Arthur Blank said recently he views Jarrett as a “Falcon for life.” The sides were not close on a deal prior to the March deadline to apply franchise tags to players, but this situation now certainly seems like one of the least acrimonious of all the tagged performers in 2019.

One of the league’s top interior defenders in recent years, Jarrett will likely want a deal that either approaches or surpasses Fletcher Cox‘s. The Eagles gave their standout defensive tackle a $17.1MM-per-year extension in 2016, when the cap resided at $155.3MM. The 2019 league year features a $188.2MM cap, pointing Jarrett’s representation to surely seek to top that pact. Although Jarrett has no Pro Bowls on his resume, he is coming off a career-best six-sack season. He graded as Pro Football Focus’ No. 5 interior defender in 2018.

The Falcons hold just $2.62MM in cap space. A Jarrett re-up would increase those funds.

Falcons Sign J.J. Wilcox

April 22nd, 2019 at 4:02pm CST by Zachary Links

On Monday, the Falcons announced the signing of safety J.J. Wilcox to a one-year deal. Wilcox, 28, played for both the Colts and Jets in 2018.

Wilcox hooked on with the Jets in June of last year and appeared in five games before being released in October. Later on, he saw time in two regular season games with the Colts, plus one playoff contest.

His most notable run came with the Cowboys, where he started 38 games as a safety and recorded 212 tackles, 15 pass defenses, five interceptions, and three fumble recoveries across four seasons.

This year, the Falcons will return safeties Ricardo Allen, Keanu Neal, Damontae Kazee, and Sharrod Neasman. They’ve also added Chris Cooper and Afolabi Laguda, but Wilcox will fight for his spot and playing time in camp.

Falcons Sign DT Ra’Shede Hageman

April 19th, 2019 at 9:39am CST by Andrew Ortenberg

Ra’Shede Hageman is back in the NFL, and right back where it all started. Hageman is signing with the Falcons, the team that drafted him in the second round back in 2014, according to Darren Wolfson of KSTP TV (Twitter link). It’s a one-year deal, tweets Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.

Hageman met with the Falcons last week, so we knew they were interested in a reunion. He’s been out of the league for a couple of years now but drew some legit interest, as the Vikings apparently kicked the tires. Hageman was the 37th overall pick of the 2014 draft, and his career got off to a decent start. But following a domestic violence incident, Hageman was placed on the commissioner’s exempt list in September of 2017 and released not long after.

He was ultimately suspended by the league for six games. He spent the entire 2017 season out of football, and drew interest from the Patriots and Seahawks last offseason but didn’t sign. He was then arrested for a DWI last June. At the time we heard of the Vikings’ interest, the former Minnesota Gopher talked about the need to prove he’d changed off the field.

“It’s been one heck of a two years sitting out and just watching my fellow teammates play, but it’s definitely a learning experience,” Hageman said. “The whole process is just getting back in everybody’s ear (with NFL teams) about me staying out of trouble. You can’t beat around the bush. They obviously want to see consistency with me. I’m letting everybody know that my past is my past.”

Hageman was hit with a two-game suspension for his DWI arrest, so he won’t be eligible to play for the first two games of the 2019 season. He appeared in 44 games with 16 starts during his three years in Atlanta.

Tyeler Davison Contract Details

April 18th, 2019 at 7:51pm CST by Dallas Robinson
  • Alabama State offensive tackle Tytus Howard is a second-round target of the Falcons, tweets Tony Pauline of DraftAnalyst.net. Daniel Jeremiah of NFL.com lauds Howard’s size (6’2′”, 322) and ability to “explode out of his stance,” but notes potential concerns about Howard’s level of competition in the FCS. Atlanta owns the 45th pick, so Howard could certainly be available when the Falcons make their second-round selection. Although Atlanta recently extended incumbent right tackle Ty Sambrailo, his new contract is essentially a one-year deal with multiple team options. Howard has also met with the Jets during the pre-draft process.
  • Defensive tackle Tyeler Davison‘s one-year deal with the Falcons will qualify as a minimum salary benefit contract, according to D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Davison will collect an $895K base salary ($110K guaranteed) and a $90K signing bonus, but he’ll only carry the salary cap charge of a second-year veteran plus his signing bonus — a total of $660K. A fifth-round pick in the 2015 draft, Davison started 48 games over the past four seasons in New Orleans, and will now give Atlanta a run-stuffing option alongside fellow defensive tackle Grady Jarrett.
Load More Posts