The Birds Are In The News Again!
So.... What's New?
One of these years, the NFL draft will come and go and the Atlanta Falcons will make no news beyond selecting a few logical picks to improve their team. But not this year. Again.
The 2025 draft is now in the rear view mirror. And once again, the Falcons are in the league headlines. Say what you want about their paltry pigskin accomplishments over nearly six decades of existence, but the Birds are rarely boring. Inept, maybe, but not boring.
Recall that last year the Atlanta braintrust stunned the football world by drafting a QB number one, only a few months after signing an aging, rehabbing free agent QB to a huge, largely guaranteed four year deal. The front office explained their rationale by saying they hoped to leave the newly- drafted QB on the bench for a few years. Nobody outside Atlanta's front office thought that this "plan" would work out well, and it didn't.
Addressing their massive needs on defense was thereby postponed, just like that unpleasant garage clean-out we've all put off for years.
And then, in the 2024 season, the Birds built a decent division lead before skidding to another sad finish, their pricey QB having gone suddenly ineffective mid-season, first denying and later citing injury as the cause of his decline. The defense again was a season - long problem, due in large part to a non- existent pass rush– which was not a surprise.
So this year, the Birds' Brains grabbed UGA LB/" edge" Jalon Walker with their first pick. This pick was a crowd- pleaser, as Walker has a broad skill set that meets the Falcons' needs. Plus he hails from a pretty good football factory only an hour away where, unlike the rest of the NFL, Atlanta rarely shops.
In the second round , the Falcons again outsmarted the rest of the league ( reality alert!) by trading UP to get Tennessee Edge James Pearce. (I'm old enough to remember back when the Edge position was called defensive end, but Edge sounds, well, edgier. It roughly translates to "pass rusher".)
Almost everyone agrees that Atlanta overpaid to get Pearce. He has big talent, but some have questioned his zeal. The Falcons traded their number one pick NEXT year to get him, which seems like a lot, especially since we already have a number one pick on the roster who doesn't play hard.(#8 on offense).
Anyway, our GM , Terry Fontenot, termed his own move "aggressive ". I think it was " brilliant ", because if things don't work out well, he, the GM, won't be around to have to manage that 2026 draft with no first rounder. He basically borrowed that pick from the next GM- to -be.
Anyway, from there the Falcons grabbed two safeties (huh?) And one O line guy. 5 picks.
Draft over, right?
Wrong.
Remember, these are the Falcons.
If you subscribe to the broadest definition of the term " entertainment "– that is, distraction , vs actual enjoyment– Atlanta has to be among the most entertaining franchises to follow. In all of sports.
In a year in which the Falcons had only five picks, they had to find another way to stay in the news. They did.
Following the stunning slide to Round five by Colorado QB Shedeur Sanders, news came out that Sanders had been pranked by a caller posing as GM of the Saints. The faux GM told Sanders that the Saints would be picking him, but he would have to wait a little longer.
Sanders was not picked until the 5th round, by Cleveland. It then was reported that the prank had been pulled by the 21 year old son of Falcons' DC Jeff Ulbrich. Ulbricht's son Jax saw the phone number on his Dad's open laptop at the house and couldn't resist playing a impulsive little joke on the Sanders family.
Huh?
Impulsivity on Draft day is nothing new for Atlanta, but this move was a new level. A few days later, there were apologies all around...and the the league has fined Atlanta...again.
In recent years the Birds have been fined multiple times– their offenses have included tampering, mis-using injury reports, and fooling around with fake crowd noises. Most recently the league tagged Atlanta for $ 250,000 for this year's Draft caper, plus another 100k to Ulbricht himself.
None of those elements suggest a logical, well- run organization . And that part seems accurate. Remember too, that the Falcons flirted with acquiring DeShaun Watson before the Cousins fiasco unfolded. Not that these missteps are anything new.
Now starting their 60th year of existence , Atlanta has made it to the Super Bowl exactly twice, losing both.
In 1999, as a touchdown underdog to Denver, Atlanta ended up losing 34-19. The cherry on top for the Falcons that year was the arrest of Birds' safety Eugene Robinson late on the night before the game, for solicitation of services of some sort. Mind you, this was the same day that Robinson had collected an award named for Bart Starr, to honor Robinson's high moral character. The fact that Robinson got burned on an 80 yard touchdown pass to Rod Smith from John Elway may not have been a coincidence. The Broncos figured that the guy who had gotten arrested was also likely under- rested.
And then, of course, in 2018, the Falcons carried a 28-3 lead late into the 3rd period, before...well....you know that story, a day that will live forever in football infamy.
Each year, 14 of the NFL's 32 teams make the playoffs. Almost half. Somehow, Atlanta has not been one of those teams for eight years running now. There is an amusing Charlie- Brown- kicking- the- football aspect to their annual hope/ anticipation about how "this year" will be different.
Showman extraordinaire PT Barnum famously said that you would not go broke underestimating the taste of the American public. The same might be said of the Atlanta area football fans regarding the pigskin game.
The Falcons start the 2025 season on September 8 when they host Pittsburgh and their old buddy Arthur Smith, now Steelers' OC. He will be eager to test the Falcons' new-look defense. Hopefully he won't have any more success than he did as Atlanta's head man in a time before Morris.
Either way, it won't be boring. Knowing our Falcons, there will be more excitement along the way.
Patrick Conarro
RamblinSports.com