The last time — the only other time, to be exact — that the Falcons came off a Super Bowl loss, they spent their first-round selection on Patrick Kerney of Virginia. That was actually a deft use of Round 1’s penultimate pick: They added a pass rusher to what was already a strong defensive line. (Chuck Smith, Shane Dronett, Travis Hall and Lester Archambeau: The Bomb Squad, remember?)
If you’ve just been to the Super Bowl, that’s what you should aim to do – add strength to strength. By definition, you’re already a very good team. With Pick No. 31, you’re not apt to add a first-year Pro Bowler. If you get lucky and do, great. But that’d really be getting lucky.
If you’ve just been to the Super Bowl, your concern should be roster maintenance, not a roster makeover. In 1999, the Falcons got Pick No. 31 right: Kerney would be a double-digit sack man, to invoke Vic Beasley Jr.’s description, and a Pro Bowler on a team that graced the NFC championship game in January 2005. Trouble was, the Falcons had to change regimes to return to such great heights, and what came after the Kerney selection was a contributing reason.
Savvy in 1999’s Round 1 1999, Dan Reeves and Co. then got silly. The Falcons, who had no No. 2 pick when that draft began, traded their No. 1 pick in 2000 to Baltimore. This was done so the Falcons could snare Reggie Kelly, a tight end from Mississippi State, in Round 2. Never mind that the Falcons already had two pretty fair tight ends in O.J. Santiago, hatcher of the Dirty Bird, and Brian Kozlowski. Reeves wanted a third, which was indeed an attempt to add strength to strength — a power-running team sought to get more powerful. That part of it made sense, sort of.
But trading away a future No. 1? (And not in any distant future; the very next year’s!) For a tight end they might well have gotten at the shank of Round 3? The only way that would have worked was if Kelly had added enough oomph to the Falcons’ run-blocking to spring Jamal Anderson for 2,000 yards — up from the 1,846 of 1998 — as the team road-graded its way to a Super Bowl victory on Jan. 30, 1999, in the Georgia Dome. Which manifestly did not happen.
Santiago fell off a golf cart on the first day of training camp at Furman. Anderson tore his ACL on Monday night at Dallas in Week 2. The 1999 Falcons went 5-11, and that was after winning their final two games. We stipulate that it wasn’t Kelly’s fault: He became a serviceable tight end who would start 149 games — 100 for the Bengals — over the next 12 seasons. He wasn’t anywhere close to being the worst Round 2 pick in Falcons history. He remains, however, the poster child for short-sighted thinking.
A team coming off a Super Bowl doesn’t need to get ahead of itself. In April 1999, the Falcons saw a tight end they liked and thought, “Since we’re going to be really good again and won’t be drafting high next year, either, who cares if we dump a No. 1 pick?” That No. 1 pick turned out to be Jamal Lewis, a Tennessee tailback who grew up in Atlanta. On Jan. 28, 2001, he gained 102 yards in the Ravens’ Super Bowl victory over the Giants.
The latter-day Falcons, last seen squandering a 25-point lead in the Super Bowl, aren’t apt to pull a Reggie Kelly. They’ve spoken about Trading Up — they always speak of it; sometimes they even do it — but what do they have to offer? The draft’s 31st pick isn’t a prime lure. They’ve got the reigning NFL MVP at quarterback, the league’s best receiver and its top sack man from 2016. They’ve worked to re-up many of their good younger players. They have top-end talent. They need depth.
It’d be nice if they could find a starting-caliber guard to replace Chris Chester, who retired, or a pass rusher to supplement Beasley, but this draft isn’t a time to get fancy. If you’re a Super Bowl team, you don’t need to dare greatly. (Five-for-Julio was done largely in the attempt to get the Falcons to the Super Bowl. Took six years, but they got there.)
If the Falcons stay at No. 31, we shouldn’t expect too much. The next-to-last pick of Round 1 in 2014 was Bradley Roby of Peachtree Ridge and Ohio State. He became the Broncos’ slot cornerback and is excellent. The No. 31 of 2015 was Stephone Anthony of Clemson. He started at linebacker as a Saints rookie, but got hurt and was less effective last year. The No. 31 of 2016 was Germain Ifedi of Texas A&M, who started for Seattle at guard in Year 1 and wasn’t very good.
That mini-history isn’t meant to scare. It’s merely a reminder of reality. You never get a sure thing with the 31st pick. If you’re coming off a Super Bowl, you shouldn’t need one. The Falcons don’t. They had their big draft — Keanu Neal, Deion Jones, Austin Hooper, De’Vondre Campbell — last year and reaped the windfall. Time now to tweak.
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