Falcons hold No. 17 overall pick in draft
The Falcons will hold the No. 17 overall pick in the first round of this year’s NFL draft.
The Falcons finished the season with an 8-8 record after Sunday’s 20-17 loss to the Saints. The tiebreaker for the order of the first 20 picks of the draft is strength of schedule among the non-playoff teams.
The Bills and Colts finished 8-8 with a better strength of schedule than the Falcons and so will pick behind them. The Raiders and Rams lost their games on Sunday to drop to 7-9.
The Falcons also have draft picks in rounds two, three, four and seven. The league took away their fifth-round pick as a penalty for piping artificial crowd noise into the Georgia Dome during the 2013 and 2014 seasons. The Falcons traded the sixth-round pick to the Titans in September in exchange for guard Andy Levitre.
>> Levitre's penalty costs Falcons in finale
The playoff teams will select Nos. 21-32 in the draft, with the order determined by postseason results.
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