FLOWERY BRANCH – Former Liberty star Malik Willis, who played high school football in metro Atlanta, could be the first quarterback selected when Day 2 of the NFL draft begins Friday night.
Willis, who began his college career at Auburn, was projected by many as the top QB prospect in the draft, but wasn’t selected during the first round Thursday. Kenny Pickett of Pitt was the lone quarterback drafted in the first round, going to the Steelers with the 20th overall pick.
The Falcons traded long-time quarterback Matt Ryan in March and signed veteran Marcus Mariota to a two-year contract. The team currently holds two picks in the second round (Nos. 43 and 58) and two in the third (74 and 82), one of those third-round picks acquired in the Ryan trade.
After working into early Friday morning, the Falcons plan to rest and get ready for rounds two and three.
“It’s exciting,” general manager Terry Fontenot said. “We are looking through the board, and it’s cool to have a day to digest and look at players that are there. And as we count, OK, this is our group, who do we expect to be there? There are some good football players at every position. So we are really excited.”
There were a rash of trades in the middle of the first round. The Falcons had offers to trade back into the first round, but didn’t consider any of them serious.
“I mean, we always answer our phone, and obviously people call and want to know if you want to get back in,” Fontenot said. “But we felt like -- we weigh everything and we talk about how much things would cost. We’ll do the same thing (Friday). We had those discussions, but we felt comfortable to be patient and get rolling (Friday).”
After trading Matt Ryan this offseason for a third-round pick, Fontenot was asked if they considered a quarterback with the eighth overall pick.
“Same way, we consider all the other positions,” Fontenot said. “We took the best player off the board.”
The process will be similar for the second day of the draft.
“We basically have the players stacked and we’ll sit down and go through them and really talk about our stack,” Fontenot said. “We’ll make those phone calls like we always do with the teams in front of us and the teams behind us and gather that information.
Fontenot said they weigh the pro and cons of any moves.
“We are making a decision on these are players that are going to be there and these are players we expect and let’s weigh what it will cost to go up,” Fontenot said. “What we’ll gain to come back and just weigh all that out.”
On Saturday, the Falcons have four picks - round four (No. 114), round five (No. 151) and round six (No. 190 and No. 213).
The Bow Tie Chronicles
AJC’S POSITION BY POSITION SERIES 2022 DRAFT
Here’s a look at the AJC’s position-by-position draft series:
WIDE RECEIVERS – Falcons need to upgrade weapons | Top 10 WRs
RUNNING BACKS – Position has become devalued in draft | Top 10 RBs
TIGHT ENDS – Chigoziem Okonkwo survived heart condition | Top 10 TEs
OFFENSIVE LINE – Ex-UGA lineman Salyer points to wins in SEC trenches | Top 10 OL
QUARTERBACKS – Malik Willis now top QB prospect for NFL draft | Top 10 QBs
DEFENSIVE LINE – Georgia dominates D-line talk ahead of draft | Top 10 DL
LINEBACKERS – Ex-UGA star Dean the latest test of play vs. measurables | Top 10 LBs
CORNERBACKS – Lots of intrigue in 2022 NFL draft’s cornerback class | Top 10 CBs
SAFETIES – Georgia’ Lewis Cine will knock your block off | Top 10 Safeties
SPECIAL TEAMS – Special-teams players attracting some NFL draft interest | Top 10 special teamers
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