Fix Your Franchise: Atlanta Falcons (w/ 3-Round Mock Draft)

Fix Your Franchise: Atlanta Falcons (w/ 3-Round Mock Draft)

the manager on Smackdown that it’s the meme that like you just got yourself a match with the Undertaker. Uh anyone this dude would walk out and he would just say for that comment player you will go oneon-one with the Undertaker. Undertaker would go the Undertaker. The Undertaker. The Undertaker. The Undertaker. Wow. Driver, I’m ready to go. Get me out of here. Buckle up, Teddy. God, Teddy Long entering the pod today. This is off to a roaring start. [Music] Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. Trevor Sickman and Connor Rogers here with you guys for another fix your franchise episode of the program. Today we are fixing the Atlanta Falcons. We’re taking a deep dive into everything, the full organization. We’re looking at the front office, the coaching staff, the assistant coaches, the whole roster, the quarterback situation. We’ll give you a free agency strategy. Do a couple of mock drafts at the end of the show. It’s going to be a good time. Connor, how you doing, my friend? I’m great, brother. It’s hockey jersey day here at Hockey Exchange. We absolutely love that. Throwbacks. Hell yeah, dude. Uh at intro, I mean, Mr. Cook, this guy, like he put him up for every award possible. Teddy Long. I never saw the limo clip. No, I’ve never seen that either. I’ve never seen that either. You and I have talked many times on this show. We I It’s perfect. You and I kind of watched wrestling during the exact era. So, there is a cut off point for us. But man, the fact that he had one trick in his bag and it was just pit his enemies against the Undertaker. But it’s a great trick. It’s It’s like when everybody’s like, “Ah, all this guy is is fast.” It’s like, “Yeah, well, he’s running by everyone.” Teddy Long had that one trick. But here we go, man. The Falcons pimp your franchise. Gonna be a good one for sure. Uh people in the chat sort of asking about the hockey jerseys to be transparent with everybody. Connor sat down and got into the Streamyard room that we’re using and he had the hockey jersey and I immediately was like, “Oh, it’s hockey jersey day.” You I’ve never seen you move faster. You You jetted out of the seat and just like that you were ready to go. People asking, “Is this a Vincent Lavier jersey?” Vincent Cabier jersey. I don’t know if I don’t know if my chair will be able to showcase. Hell yeah. Look, that is a CCM beauty. Yeah. Yeah. What’s yours? Ryan Leech. Well, I got a hood on, but got the little Stanley Cup patch. Hell yeah, dude. Yeah. Hockey jersey. I don’t know how you feel about this. I think hockey jerseys are far and away the best aesthetic for a fan to wear. I would well first of all I know you would say that because you live in a cold weather climate and I’d counter that jersey over a hoodie like you know do it every day. The fashion forward young man that you are it’s an elite aesthetic for any sports fan. I would agree with that. It’s a Northeast. Yes. I think the counter is where you’re probably going as a Florida man. And I agree with this. Throwing on an NBA jersey on the beach is just sure seamless. Sure. Sure. Sure. It comes complete with a high noon or white claw or vizzy or whatever your selzer of choid. Yep. We’ve all done it. We’re all No, we’re not above it. Somebody in the chat saying the New York Islanders have won four in a row. We’re not going to talk about that because one of those four was against the Tampa Bay Lightning. So, we’re not going to talk about they beat the Rangers this year. really quick. Last night was when the Lightning played the Islanders and they lost two to one and I’m I’m sitting on the couch with my wife and I pull up the score of the game and I was just like I’m not I’m not even we’re not even we’re not talking. We’re just sitting next to each other. I pull up the score to the game and it says Islanders 2 Lightning one. I don’t even say anything to her. She goes, “Damn, that’s pretty tough for you.” I look over at her. I’m like, “Excuse me? What’s your deal? What what hell the hell did I do? Exist?” She just starts She just starts laughing. She’s like, “I’m just saying this pretty tough look for you.” That is That is elite trash talk. You’re just sitting there. My line is like, “I’m just existing out here and just getting hated on for absolutely no reason. I’m out here doing some light Googling with some sports scores. Next thing I know, I’m getting roasted.” Sports scores. Just trying to keep up with all the games. this Falcons uh fixture franchise is going to be a good time because there are some fixture franchises that we do where we go, okay, well, we’re not really touching the front office. We’re not going to talk about the coaching staff or maybe like they got quarterback figured out or whatever. For the Falcons, I feel like a lot of this is wide open and we get to have a lot of these conversations about potential changes. Not that I feel think that they’re gonna completely clean house on all these things. What I’m curious is to hear what you think about Yeah. um a lot of those big situations, but we at least get to talk about a lot of them here. Uh let’s You want to run through some super chats before we dive into this? Yep. They’re already piling up. Let’s get to it. Okay. It ain’t much, but it’s honest work. It is honest work. Uh Freddy, $5 super chat getting us started off right here. My Falcons need to pump up their panics. They can’t seem to can’t seem to rise up with this coaching staff. Where’s Peter with the with the blue choose sponsorship when you need it? Um, they just can’t seem to finish. That is pause. P pause, Freddy. So, there’s a triple threat there for you, but we appreciate the $5, brother. Are you suffering from rise up dysfunction? Did Peter feed that line to you? No. We’re I’m having a pre-production call every week now with Peter. With with Peter? Yeah, that would be the backbone of the show. Oh my god. All right, TAW, thank you for the $10 super chat. Time has come. Raheem’s got to go. He never deserved the head coaching job. He’s a pathetic head coach. Also, that JPJ trade looks great with him leading rookies in sacks. Where do you rank JPJ among this year’s edge class? Harsh work. Uh for Raheem Morris, where would where would I rank James Pierce Jr. who is having a great year? And obviously we’ll get into that because I think that that’s part of Terry Fondo’s evaluation of what he did in the draft last year. But James Pierce Jr. in this year’s edge class, I mean, depending on what you think of Arvel Reese, if you think he’s an edge rusher, I think Ree would be better. I I probably I probably would have taken Ruben Bane over him as well, but then it gets short quick. James Spurge Jr.’s probably next, right? Yeah, it feels that way. He’s the first guy I’ve seen this year that made Armanu look human at times, right? I was like, damn. I was like, we haven’t seen Membu and Meu’s gone up against TJ Watt and Miles Garrett. Yeah, he’s been so good. But Pierce Pier Pierce is a very good rusher on an island. Very gifted rusher on an island. So, he’s Yeah, he’s definitely been uh and they they need that trade to be a smash because of obviously what they gave up to get him. Yeah. and like Kendrick Fauls in this class, but I think you and I feels like are a little bit lower on Kellrick Faul just overall. Not that he’s not a good football player, it’s just is the pass rush there for him. So, right, that goes into that equation like when you think about him. Um TJ Parker hasn’t quite had the year that we’ve wanted him to. Cashes How that’s probably he’s probably right there with Cashes How for like edge three or edge four in my opinion if he was Yeah. I would have David Bailey I think over him. Oh yeah, David Bailey too. Bailey’s a menace. Although it’s kind of funny like they’re they’re similar similar bucket of player, right? They are. I think that it’s probably that’s really the conversation now that we’ve talked it out a little bit. It’s probably still Ruben May Jr. and Arville Reese that are in that first bucket, but then James Pierce Jr. would be right there probably as a potential top 15 pick in that next bucket of David Bailey, Cashes Howell, and and JPJ in our opinion. But um appreciate the $10 super chat. Uh Johnny $10. Hey there, small fry. Watch it. Need to put the Steelers on as a potential fixture franchise for the radar. Um, we just don’t get put there because we pretend that we are competitive each year. The Steelers were talked about as the topic for this episode and I think we will be getting to the Steelers pretty soon. Yeah, conversations have been had so just sit tight. We’ll Yeah, I think your wishes will be granted there. McFarland, thank you for the $5 super chat. I’m about to drop a stack on these super chats. Rise up. I like where you’re thinking. Starting with $5. Love it. Dirty bird Nate. $2 super chat. Pimp my chai is back. Let’s go. Please save my team. Gonna do the best job we possibly can here. Here. I I’ll read this one for Preston. Preston $10 super chat said, “When Alyssa, who is my wife, uh came on screen during the Clemson South Carolina game at the bar, I leaned over to my girlfriend. I said, quote, “She’s married to one of the guys from the podcast I always have on.” And she went quote, “Oh yeah, NFL. Nice. W wife, baby. Wife. Can we get some non-stop W Preston’s wife in the chat, please? That’s what we need here for a comment like that. Girlfriend. Oh, girl. Significant other. Yeah. Romantic interest. I mean, that might be a sign that she’s the one. I I it might be. No pressure here, Preston. But if she recognizes the podcast, I mean, that’s pretty good. That’s a pretty good barometer right there. Kristen, who is my wife, uh, the other day we were on the couch. Wife talk in this chat. So much so much wife bragging. Alyssa was doing an NBA game the other night and Kristen did the Leo meme like without trying to do it. And I was like, “Yes, yes, that is our friend.” Yes. All right, Tony Lee, thank you for the $20 super chat. Always good to see Tony in the chat. How’s it going, guys? Been doing a lot of mock drafts lately. PF Simulator, of course. Is it crazy for the Jets to take Sunonny Styles with the Colts pick? I think the Jets linebackers have looked terrible this year. Tony, I am with you. They paid Jamime and Sherwood. The contract has not paid off uh very well this year. Quincy is a free agent after the year and has been up and down. Linebacker is going to be I think a pretty big need for the Jets. And Sunonny Styles taking him out in late first round. That’s not crazy to me in this draft. It I think him, CJ Allen, like these those are the guys you’re going to see them connected to the Jets a little bit for sure. All right, rapid fire on a couple of these before we uh really dive into this uh Jagger $5 super chat. USC fan here and wanted to let the people know that it is highly likely that Jaden Mayava is returning to USC according to people close to the program. Industry sources industry sources right there. I like it. I like it. Moves like Jagger over here. Wow. Need to sources like Jagger for the podcast. Couldn’t be me. Yeah. Up your source game. you ain’t got anything on the Jade Mayava. I don’t know anything about you conversation. So, that’s good to know though. Man, this class quarterback could be thinning out. We’ll see when we get to mid January what the class is when it’s all said and done. So, Spade, thank you for the $5 super chat. How much to get Trev to show up to work wearing a 2015 Blackhawk Stanley Cup champ shirt. There’s no price. You have pride. Not Not a Not Not a Peter in the world could uh could could sponsor that happening. Dan Moore and Peter could come together for a board of directors and they would not be able to afford you. Board of directors. That’s true. It’s very true. We’ll have that one day. Kev $5 super chat. I wore my goals jersey to my office job today. Did my manager tell me to go home and change? Yes. Did I? No. Kev, that is awesome. So Kev is basically saying that uh the price for him to wear such a jersey at work is whatever his salary is because that’s what he would have paid to do it. That is it’s freaking awesome that you have a goals jersey. Some of the whether it’s AHL, the ECHL, the OHL, like dude, some of the jerseys of the non-NHL teams are insane. Yeah, insane. That’s awesome. Garrett, thank you for the $10 super chat. First time long time. I honestly got to ask where are the Browns because honestly if Miles wasn’t going off I don’t know if I could make and then he stopped typing so maybe he didn’t make it. Damn. Yeah, he he just he couldn’t take it anymore. Gary, you got to Garrett, you got to you got to stay with us here because Yeah, Miles Garrett’s about to break the sack record with like four games left to go. At least watch that and then watch fixing pimping the Browns. Yeah, which will which will be here at some point. We promise you. Uh last two here. Uh Dan $5 super chat. Ah, yes. Phil fixing the Falcons ED. Love it. We will. Well, actually, they did a good job of that last year with the double divided edge. Uh Gabriel, $5 super chat. This is the last one and then we’ll really dig into it. If Michael Pennix comes back next year and struggles after injury, do the Falcons draft a quarterback due to his devastating injury history and his age? I think it’s a really good way to usher in everything that we’re going to be talking about here with the Falcons because we are going to answer that uh in depth here as we kick things off. Now, the Atlanta Falcons, they’re 4-8 on the season. Now, on the screen, I wanted to go all the way back to the Arthur Smith era. Uh, one because it’s contextually relevant, and two, because it’s objectively hilarious that in the three years that he was uh their head coach, they just went seven and 10 three straight years uh in a row. And so, that’s uh that’s no notes. That’s kind of the consistency that uh you just money can’t buy that kind of consistency to be honest with you. Yeah, absolutely. uh sabotage Bian Robinson’s career and go seven and 10. Arthur Smith’s whiteboard every day when he walks into his office. That’s That’s what it was. War on fantasy football. Do you remember that? I’ll never forget it. I last year that he was there. It’s arguably the best cold open we’ve ever done. Didn’t you drop the fbomb for that one? Yeah, I think I actually did. Uh Arthur Smith Arthur Smith is the joker of fantasy football. He will blow up cities over fantasy football. Yes, he really will. Yep. An alltimer. So then we have Raheem Morris last year goes eight and nine. But I think the frustrating part of going eight and nine is they were six and three, you know, and so then you lose you lose six games. You only win two down the stretch. It’s how math works. Yeah, I like that. That’s that’s obviously it’s it’s tough to stomach because you felt like you could have had a better finish down the stretch last year with the Falcons and and this year as we kind of get into their offensive and defensive grades. They’re not terrible. Like the passing game hasn’t been good because PennX hasn’t been good. We’ll we’ll take a deeper dive into that in a second. But when you look at the rest of the numbers here, the offensive line’s pretty decent. The run game’s great. the run game. They’re top 10 in rushing grade as a team with Tyler Algier and Bejan Robinson. They’re top 10 in EPA per rush. It’s just the passing game that’s really struggled for them. And then if you go to the defensive side of the football as well, I know a lot of people really harping on Jeff Olrich who uh you obviously know during his time when he was with the Jets. Now he’s the defensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons. It’s been up and down for them, but it’s not like this is the worst unit in the world. And they’re young. Like I I always kind of figure that the Falcons defense if they were middle of the pack this year, you feel pretty good about that because there’s going to be some weeks where they’re borderline top 10 and they’re playing really well and there’s going to be other weeks where they’re just young and inexperienced and they’re just learning. And to be honest with you, Connor, I feel like that’s what we’ve had from the Falcons. So, it’s a frustrating year. There’s no doubt about it. Especially because the Bucks have been sputtering in the middle of the season. Carolina’s been super up and down. If you’re a Falcons fan, you’re probably sitting there saying, “We should have been right there. We should have been right there with these teams. We could maybe even be at the top of the division. Maybe not owning the division, but top of it.” And to me, it’s just the struggles at quarterback have been a lot worse than we thought they were going to be in PennX’s first year as a full-time starter here. Yeah. I think that with a defense that’s as young as they are, you see the highs and lows. They’ve had standout performances in plays, whether it’s big-time sacks or takeaways, and then they have blown assignments, you know, giving up big plays as well. Uh, we’ve seen that throughout the year. So, I think it’s tricky with the Falcons because when you when I was getting ready for this exercise and I just saw this team because I I covered the Jet game on Sunday, but I’ i’ve watched enough of them this year before that. Like you said, Bri was with the Jets for a while. I know them pretty well schematically. Trevor, when I was just doing the prep for this exercise, on paper, I’m like, this is not a bad football team, right? This not this bad right now. They are underachieving, which the head coach is always going to take on a lot of the blame for an underachieving team. the quarterback play will be scrutinized and we’ll have a large conversation about Penn because I think that I’ve had some schematic complaints with this team on like as well and I don’t think they’re I don’t think I know if Drake London even with Drake London on the field you look around at the pass catchers and you’re like who and what Darnell Mooney’s been bad this year and hurt all the time and then after that it’s people that most NFL fans don’t know or can’t believe David Sills is still in the league. So, I’m serious. So, it just there’s a just started it was a sweeping statement to start like, oh, you got players that like you maybe don’t know or you get to a point where David Sills is in the league and it’s like you just panic. Sorry, David SS specifically. I don’t mean I don’t mean that, but I do. Um, yeah, it’s just I I’ve been disappointed because the start of this team, I’m like, damn, this is what they were building. They want to be fast and electric on defense. And they’re going to hit some explosives through the pass game, but they also want to obviously lean on their run game and not ask too much of PennX. And then it really just all fell apart fast for this team. Uh Ken in the chat saying that the Legion of Whom could uh stop this Falcon’s passing attack. And unfortunately, I I do think that that’s kind of true at this point because it’s a little too individual, right? It’s either Bejian Robinson and Tyler Algier kind of winning on their own in the run game or it’s it’s basically Drake London and that’s it. We’ve seen some games where it’s quite literally just been Drake London, right? I mean, like they they’ve had nothing else. He’s had 100 yard games and games where he’s averaged over 30% of a threat percentage, which if people are new to the PFF terminology, that’s essentially like wide receiver usage, how often you are being targeted per route that you are running. And the best in the NFL are normally somewhere around like mid to high 20s. And there are games where Drake London’s in in the 30s of of just like we don’t have anybody else here. And I think team building and a lot of the struggles have have gone into that. And we’re going to talk about Terry Fontnau because to be honest with you, we’ll talk about everything here, but I think Fontnau is is most to blame. Like if if I agree with you, if you have the three options of Terry Fontno, their general manager, Raheem Morris, their head coach, and Michael Penn, the quarterback, Penn’s struggles obviously affect the team the most because it’s onfield performance. But there are issues throughout the team, whether it’s lack of pass catchers, um lack of cornerbacks and and just a roster that feels like it’s always kind of playing catch-up to the needs that they have had and they’re never really getting ahead of it. I feel like that’s a font, no thing. And so we’ll talk a lot about him, but I wanted to I wanted to talk specifically about Michael Penn. And I just wanted to sort of break down what he has been this year in his first year as a full-time starter because remember, you know, Kirk Cousins started the year last year, but then Pennix ends up coming in when when um when they really started struggling down the stretch and so he took over and we knew that he was going to be the starter for them going into this season. What was it? Was it that LA was that the last game of the year in Carolina where he had like seven big time throws? Like it was insane. I think so. Cuz he he play he started what three down the stretch and it felt like what whenever that Carolina game was, whether it was the last game, I think it was the last game. I think so, too. I’m going to pull seven big time throws and we were like, buddy, we made it. We absolutely made it. Yeah. When he came in, I mean, you’re you’re right. that overtime loss against Carolina where he threw for over 300 yards and he had all the big time throws the Washington game where they lost in overtime where like you just watched him and you’re like yeah that’s the guy that we were hoping for the Washington version of Michael Penn, right? And I’m glad that you brought that up because that’s one of the points I’m going to make in a second here with Penn. You see the numbers on the screen, but for those of you who are are audio only listeners, we love you and appreciate you. So 50.8 overall passing grade this season. It’s not great. Now again just to remind people when it comes to PFF grades 60.0 is neutral 60.0 is average because what PFF does is they grade every play from every player and depending on how well you executed the job that you were asked to do on that play. You will either get a neutral grade like hey you know like you did your job like you were you were fine on this play or you go above and beyond. you get like a plus.5, a plus one, a plus 1.5 and it goes all the way up to a plus two for some of the greatest plays you’ve ever seen in your life. And then on the other hand, if you didn’t execute well enough, if you are a reason why a play failed or if you missed a block that was obvious or you missed a tackle or you had a turnover worthy play, well all of a sudden then that’s minus.5, minus one, minus 1.5 and minus two depending on the severity of it. So a 60 is neutral. A lot of people think of it as grades where they go like, “Okay, well, a 60 is a D minus and it’s basically failing.” That’s not the scale that PFF works off of. So, a 50.0 isn’t horrible, but a lot of the quarterbacks in the NFL who are starters are somewhere around 70 and above. Anyways, he’s got seven big-time throws this year, which is a 2.5% big-time throw percentage. And he has 10 turnover worthy plays, which is a 3.3 turnover worthy play percentage. Connor, that 2.5% big-time throw percentage, that’s not the Michael Pennix that we watched at Washington. I mean, he he had turnover worthy plays, but he was a big game hunter. Yeah, three-point shooter all day. Abs. That’s perfect. He is a three-point shooter all day. And you see the adjusted completion percentage is okay. The turn the the time to throw is okay, and the pressure to sack ratio of just a 12.3%. Like all of that stuff is okay from PennX. Then you get into some of more of the advanced stats that I wanted to dig into from him. Specifically, the ones that are at the very top of the screen here, Connor, this is what has been so shocking to me about Penn this year is that over the middle of the field, he has an 82.9 passing grade. So, between the numbers, which is great. You have to be able to attack over the middle of the field. And to be honest with you, with how much Pennix attacked outside the numbers at Washington, that was his game. I was a little worried about how he would be over the middle of the field in the NFL. That was a huge combo about him leading up to the draft and rightfully so. I I you know how much I liked Pennix, but that I thought that was a very fair conversation from people. And yet he’s been pretty dang good at that this year. However, the outside the number stuff. This year he has a 54.2 2 passing grade outside the numbers. And Connor, seven of his turnover worthy plays have happened outside the numbers. And the reason why is because he’s not super confident right now. And when you’re late to the outside, that’s when it gets dangerous. That’s when you’re inaccurate. That’s when you have the turnover worthy plays. And right now, he’s just not super confident. very common of a firstear full-time starter, right? But that is where we’re at with him. And we’ll have the injury conversation in a second, but that’s really what I’ve been seeing. I’m actually pleasantly surprised with how well he’s played between the numbers, but it’s that outside the numbers stuff that he’s very skittish of right now in a way that we haven’t seen from Pennix in three or four years going back to his two years at Washington. Yeah. Right. So like how you’re highlighting it is the gra the glass half full is well he’s throwing really well in the middle of the field and we’ve seen him at the college level throw outside the numbers as well as anyone over the last couple years last year for sure. Yes, we know it’s in there. My schematical complaint, and this is something I I’ve talked about before he got hurt, where, and not to take away blame from Penn because he’s a better player than what he showed this year, and he’s got to be better for them to be the future of this team, is that what I don’t understand is why they do such little play action when your run game is so good and you have the threat of Bean Robinson. For instance, Trevor, this year his play action dropback percentage was 19.5% of the time. For some context, the first guy I Googled, just out of like curiosity, not Googled, searched, was Matthew Stafford. Mhm. Who’s 37.5% of the time. And the reason I’m complaining about this number being so low for Pennix is it’s one of the metrics he’s really good at. He’s I think he has an elite passing grade on play action throws. Yes, he his he’s uh 72 passing grade, which is his highest mark compared to no play action in the screen game and no screen. Okay. All right. He averages almost nine yards per attempt off play action throws. Yeah. So, it’s it’s one of those things where he’s you know, he’s only taken three sacks. It’s one of those things where you’re sitting there and you’re going, why don’t they do more of this? Because when you watch the tape of it, it creates so much space in the intermediate area of the field because it’s Bejian Robinson. You have to respect it. It forces the middle of your defense, the linebackers to step forward. And then Penn is excellent at throwing over their heads and they do so little of it. And I just there are faults in Penn’s game this year, but that to me is a big fault in the play calling that I I just don’t understand. Yeah. And and I I thought it was going to be a really good year for Zack Robinson as their play caller and it just it hasn’t like I I I understand that they really only have Drake London to be able to throw the ball to, but there are which is a font a big glaring indictment on Fnau. That’s unacceptable. We will get to that in a few minutes here. We will. But even with that being the case, it it feels like he’s not helping himself because you mentioned just a 19% play action percentage, I remember at the when we were five or six weeks into the season, I remember seeing this number and the Falcons were dead last in play action percentage and I was like, what? Like by a long shot, they were dead last and I was like, why? Why are we doing this? When it came to motion rates, they were fine. And I think they were around like the NFL standard, but play action, they were almost never running it. And when you take it even further than that, my co-host on the PFN NFL show, Don Washerman, pointed this out again. I think this was around when we were five, six weeks into the season. He’s like, Trevor, you realize that they’re basically tipping their pitches? And I was like, what are you talking about on offense? And he’s like, 80 to 85% of the time that they’re under center, they run the football. 80 to 85% of the time they’re in shotgun, they pass. And I was like, that’s crazy high numbers. You can’t be that predictable at what you’re doing. No. And I don’t know if they realized it even at the time that they just the plays that they liked in the passing game, they were installing from the shotgun. And a lot of the plays that they liked from the run game, they were installing from under center. But whatever it was, we picked up on it. I’m sure other teams picked up on it, too. So now you’re becoming really predictable with wh what’s coming, run, run versus pass. And you’re not utilizing play action for any sort of deception even when you’re doing one or the other. So that’s why I just it’s it’s it’s been a tough year for Zach Robinson to be honest with you guys. And we’ll talk a little bit more about Raheem Morris and and what I think of him still being the head coach here. But to be honest, I think that what’s most likely is that Raheem’s going to get another shot next year and he’s going to get just a new offensive coordinator because it has not worked with with Robinson. No. I Arthur Blank is a patient man and you have to wonder does he does he just roll it back with Raheem one more year or is it because of the way the seasons have gone where it starts off promising and then just decays into madness and then the issue is and Pennix is at the forefront of this they are now in the odd in between right where we did this with um a lot of GMs this year, but notably, what did we just go through the draft history on Monday? It was Oh, Quzi. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Quzi, Joe Shane, bunch of different guys this year. Terry Fontnau is unfortunately kind of trending towards that bucket of the draft’s just the player acquisition is just not good enough. Yeah. But are you going to only move on from Terry and then attach a different GM to Raheem? Do you move on from everyone? And then as a new regime trying to figure out what they do with an injured Michael Pennix, there are so many warped timelines now that maybe all of that just leads to Arthur Blank being like, let me give all of these guys one more year. And like you said, Trevor, the button you can press when you do that is a new play caller for sure. I I admittedly don’t have a lean here. I could see a scenario where Raheem’s gone. I could see a scenario where Raheem and Terry are gone. I could see a scenario where everyone’s back and they just hire a new offensive coordinator. It they are a very tricky and I I want Falcons fans or anybody in the chat to kind of give their their thoughts on what will happen or what they want to happen because I’m curious. If I had to lean one way, it Arthur Blank is not notorious for doing this, but it might be time to just kind of start the clean slate one year early rather than one year late. I think I think that is a possibility. Let’s let’s talk about Terry Fontau and and let’s dig into that because I think that’ll naturally get us into the conversation with him. It’ll get us into the conversation with Raheem and then we’ll bring it back to Pennix is sort of the the game plan that you and I will have to fix this franchise moving forward. Before we do that though, folks, if you don’t subscribe to the show, what are you doing? We would love for you to be a part of the addicts. We have a ton of fun around here. Hopefully you guys have noticed that already. If you have enjoyed any of the content that we have done on this show, it’s a free easy way to support what we’re doing. The community is fantastic. We love going back and forth with you guys, whether it’s these fixture franchise series, we’re going to have the player rankings for the upcoming NFL draft uh in a couple of weeks. We’re getting that kicked off, all the mock drafts, everything. So, we don’t want you guys to miss it. We would love for you to be here for it. And if you’re not subscribed, we would love for you to be. So, uh we would really appreciate that. Terry Font, no, let’s look at the background that he has. played safety at two lane. Wanted to shout out the football routs that he has there. New Orleans Saints scouts scout from 2003 to 2012. Then he was a New Orleans Saints director of pro scouting from 2013 to 2019. Then he was their assistant GM in 2020. Then he was hired as the Falcons general manager in 2021. He’s got a 33 and 47 record as the Falcons general manager. He was also, interesting enough, hired after Arthur Smith during this process. So technically, he’s only hired one head coach. This isn’t I think some people might look at it and be like, “Oh, he’s what are we going to give him a third crack at head coach?” Technically, he’s only hired one head coach. So, that does kind of go into the equation there, Connor. I think that the team building has been an issue and we’ll get to the draft history part of this in a second, but I think the root of the issues with why I say that their roster has always been one step behind instead of one step forward starts back in 2021 when they went after Deshun Watson. That is where all of this goes wrong in my opinion because was Matt Ryan great his last two years in Atlanta? No. But you were in a situation where could have potentially, you know, like gotten another year out of him? You could have played it patient with quarterback for one more season. But they didn’t do that. They went after Deshawn uh despite him not playing at all the year before because of the 22 sexual assault allegations that he had against him. They went after him hard in the trade market. Obviously, they didn’t end up getting him. He ends up going to the Cleveland Browns. But because all of that became so public in their pursuit of Deshaawn Watson, Matt Ryan was like, “Okay, screw you guys, right? Franchise legend. You didn’t want me here. I’m not going to play for you.” So then all that entire relationship sour Matt Ryan I don’t I I can’t remember if he like publicly demanded a trade but for all intents and purposes demanded out so they had to trade him to the Colts and because I think the Colts didn’t have Carson Wentz at the time. So they go get Matt Ryan. So now they’re sitting here with what do we do? We struck out on Deshawn. We didn’t get Desawn. Now, we don’t even have our backup plan in Matt Ryan because they were kind of trying to have their cake and eat it too behind the scenes, right? So, then plan C was they signed Marcus Mariota and then they drafted Desmond Ritter. Mariota started most of the 2022 season, but then he eventually got benched at the end of the year and they gave Desmond Ritter a look. Now, the problem is, and I see some people in the chat talking about this a little bit earlier, is they were like, “Oh, we gave up on Desmond Ritter way too early.” I Desmond Ritter was not the answer for you. But the problem is is that you waited too long to start Desmond Ritter. You only gave him four games at the end of the year. Now Arthur Smith was just trying to win as many games as possible. So he’s just trying to play the best quarterback and shocker, it was the veteran instead of the third round rookie. But because you only gave Desmond Ritter four games, you had no choice but to say, “Well, we have too small of a sample size.” Right? So now you have to go into next year with Dez Murder as your quarterback. They then entered the 2020, what was this? 2023 draft. Uh, no, no, no. This was the 2024 draft with a massive need at pass rusher and defensive line. But instead, they had to overcompensate the entire off season at quarterback because they didn’t have one. Desmerator didn’t work out for them. So then they had to go and spend a ton of Well, they didn’t have to. They spent a ton of money on Kirk Cousins and then they drafted the number eight Penn with the number eight overall pick. Completely ignored pass rusher because they had to make up for not having a quarterback. Then the next year, what we just saw this past draft, they have to totally overcompensate drafting both Jaylen Walker trading up for James Pierce Jr. and then what happens now? You have a quarterback need that you didn’t touch entirely. So this this this whole team building process stems from the swing and miss that they had on Deshun Watson and ever since then they have been one step behind on their roster needs and they have not been able to get ahead and ultimately in my opinion that that falls on Terry Fawn. No, it it does. It has to. It does. And the process with the off seasonason of both quarterbacks is maybe the most alarming of all because it was not a scenario where they went out and got Kurt Cousins and then said, “We want to develop a guy behind Cousins.” I promise you that wasn’t the scenario. The process was they fell in love with Penn after signing Cousins and promising Cousins that job for a couple years and everything that came with it. And then they liked Penn so much who was not a st like it wasn’t like when Mahomes was drafted. When Mahomes was drafted everybody knew Mahomes was going to sit that first year at least. It wasn’t even a thought that he would have to play. and Pennix and Bo Nicks and Jaden Daniels that year. One of like the big positives for those three guys was man, they played a lot of college football at two different places. All three of them. All three of them. So now you they pissed off Kirk Cousins. I mean, he was pissed off when they took Penn. You’ve created a bad environment right off the right off the bat. You’ve sunk a ton of cap space into Kirk Cousins. It’s just that’s wasted resources and it’s a poor process. Why did you not know your thoughts on PennX and the quarterback class before investing all that money into Kurt Cousins? That’s a bad process. And that’s a that process is led by the general manager. And ultimately, I think it’s what’s going to kind of define his regime that failed. I think so, too. I I I will say that there there has to be an Arthur Blank angle here too because I don’t know how much of a lot of these moves especially at quarterback were Arthur Blank fueled because owners when they meddle they basically like only meddal at quarterback typically. They don’t they they let you build the rest of the roster but Arthur Blank was absolutely involved in pursuing Deshun Watson. Yeah. and therefore pissing off Matt Ryan and therefore not having any sort of a quarterback. Arthur Blank, you have to believe because of how much money they gave Kurt Cousins, was absolutely involved in in going into that 2024 off season and basically saying, “I’m done with this. We swung and missed on Deshawn in 2021. It’s three years later. We have no quarterback plan. We’re going to spend the money.” He tried he tried to risk proof the quarterback position. They dropped $150 million on Kurt Cousins and then they dropped the number eight overall pick on Michael Penn. They basically said something to work. We’re breaking we’re breaking the rules. You tell us you tell us that quarterback isn’t something that you could throw money at and fix BS. We’re going to do it. We’re going to put that to the test. And guess what they did? It failed. It doesn’t work like that. And so I think that has to go into the Terry Fonto discussion here, but that’s also not to completely let him off the hook because the rest of the drafts, the rest of the free agent editions have, like I said, reflected a roster that’s always one step behind. You know, let’s pull up the draft history here from him because I think that it’s it’s good to get a good feel of like what the draft history is here. 2025, you got Jaylen Walker in the first round, you got James Pierce Jr. in the second round. They got Xavier Watts and they got Billy Bowman. I I think that’s a great draft from the players that you got. Now, the problem is that’s my grade. Yes. The problem is is that if you look at the James Pierce Jr. trade, if you take the draft pick value from draft tech of where the Falcons are currently sitting, that is minus 1,000 draft points in the red for what they gave up to go get James Pierce Jr. It’s almost unfathomable. And if you want to say, well, they thought they might be a playoff team this year. Even if you move that draft pick from this year all the way back to like the early 20s, that’s still about -400 negative500 in the draft value chart. That is I like James Pierce Jr. I liked him a lot. Now that he’s on the team, good football player. I think he’s going to help your roster. But from a strategy of how you operate as a GM, there’s no other way to put it. Massive overpay. And why do you overpay, Connor? Because you’re a step behind, right? You’re a desperate man. That’s how you get to that point. And it’s just not a healthy way to manage a team. And that was why I gave this a B minus because I like the players. I really do. But at what cost? And Nick in the chat just said it. They gave up a first for Pierce two picks after the Giants gave up a third to go get Dart. Yep. That I mean it’s one thing you paid a hefty price to get a player you love. It’s another thing when the price you pay doesn’t align with the rate at all. So, it’s it’s a little bit of like, yeah, they got good players here, but it’s going to cost them in the future, especially a year where this pick could have been really really valuable to them in a lot of different areas. It’s and you’re right, like the the desperation angle to Fontnau is now also another problem. Some somebody in the chat said, “No, no, no. Red’s good. They’re the they’re the Falcons. the their colors are red. Red’s good. A thou 1,000 in the red is good. Shout out presser for that one. Also, shout out Bengal in the chat. We got Bengal in there. He is uh Bengal said, what was his first comment? Hold on. He said, uh, Terry needs to find another top 10 pick to draft another skill position player. Kenyon Sadique, come on down. specifically number eight overall Bengal because that’s where they’ve picked the last three years in a row, which is ironic, Connor, because that’s kind of where they’re headed again this year, but they don’t have they don’t make the pick. But they don’t make the pick. In honor of the Falcons should the Rams should walk up and have Roger Goodell walk to the podium be like the Rams said in honor of this being originally the Falcons pick the Los Angeles Rams select Kenyan Sadique eighth overall. Yeah. I mean Tyler you could you could scroll through some of the draft history right now because um actually can you go can you go back to the that’s the 2024 class. So the 2024 class and I don’t I don’t hate the last couple of classes that he’s had. Like 2024 obviously Pennix if it doesn’t work out. I mean it makes that defines this class. It defines the class. Yeah, that’s the way that you say it. But like Rook’s okay. Brilland Trice unfortunately has just been hurt in each of the last two years. Brandon Doris I think is good value at round four. He’s somebody who I would have taken in the top 100. Jace Mlan’s a decent backup running back. Zion Logan’s an okay backup defensive lineman. You’re getting some decent day three picks in there. I don’t hate the last two drafts in a vacuum. Kind of hate I don’t love them. I Well, I hate the situation surrounding them, right, of how we got to the names on paper. But you start scrolling back and we get to 2021 specifically as 2020. There’s the 2023 class. That’s the Bejian year. The 2022 class is basically just, you know, Drake London and and and here’s the 2021 class, right? This is tough to look at because we do a lot of these exercises and general managers are typically not great with their first drafts. Unfortunately for Terry Fontau, 2021 ruled. There were so many incredible football players that were taken in the 2021 NFL draft and you got the worst of the bunch in Kyle Pittz. Richie Grant’s not there anymore. Jaylen Midfield is not there anymore. Darren Hall is not. Drew Dolman’s on another team now. Played well for them. Good pick, right? And then let him go. Not even there anymore. So you had a what was this? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine player class. That is a complete dud. Complete dud. I mean, taking Kyle Pittz over Jamar Chase. Come on now. What was their They still have Julio at the time. Let me see. Let me scroll back. I mean, scroll back to the How old was Julio at the time? Hold on. I’m I’m looking at the month before this draft. They did have Julio. Oh, and they had Calvin Ridley. They would have never done it. Would have never done it. I mean, there was Was this the last year? Did Calvin Ridley have the gambling stuff immediately after this? I think he did cuz that’s just an alltime bad beat. No pun intended. There’s just so many better options, man. M. Like, this isn’t hindsight either. I mean, I have 2021 rankings. I didn’t agree with Pitts going here. And I don’t think I don’t think it’s hindsight. Oh, Julio got traded after the draft. That makes it worse. Julio was traded right after. I forgot that. And And Calvin Ridley one year later got suspended for a year for gambling, which okay, you can’t see that coming, but it it’s just a bad it’s a bad thing. Yeah. And no, that was I didn’t mean to cut you off, but that was the the following year is when Ridley left the team for mental health reasons. Yeah, he had a lot going on. So, he left the se the team mid-season with mental health reasons and then he got suspended on March of 2022, the following offseason. That is that is so bad to not have Jamar Chase on your team then at that point with with Kyle Pittz obviously, you know, his story unfolding the way that it did. Damn. Yeah, this was the beginning of the Oh, boy. It’s tough, brother. But I mean, once again, he did not to just get hung up on the Kyle Pitts pick forever like Richie Grant and Jaylen Mayfield. Yeah, you you can’t only you can only miss on so many top 75 picks. And I’m not saying they need to be all pros, but just be on a roster for you. Freddy said, “I completely underestimated how much going through this would upset me. We apologize. Uh, all right, Connor. I Okay, I was about to say I think Terry Fontau should should go. I think they should move on from him. Yeah, I’m with you. But, but before we talk about GM candidates, do we think it’s realistic? Like, do because now we’re in a situation where it’s it’s a little bit tricky. Very clearly Arthur has worked with Terry Fono on multiple big signings and draft picks and everything. So I have to think that that he likes him. It’s not like he doesn’t like him as general manager, Raheem Morris is in his second year. And as much as people don’t like Raheem, I I think it would be unfair to let him go after this year. I really do. I I I think that you kind of have to look at the struggles with offensive coordinator specifically and give him one more year with a different offensive coordinator. I think that’s fair. Yeah. I like hiring the GM and the coach on the same together. Together, which I do, too. Has me hung up here. I I don’t Here’s the problem, and I know the chat is kind of leaning this way as well. Like, I root for Raheem. There’s nothing I can put my hat on right now and say, “Yeah, this looks good. Let’s It’s gonna get a lot better.” And he So, oh man, there’s a super chat. Let me find it because this is really important here. And it was a really good one from Ken. Ken, thank you for the $10 super chat. He said, “What kind of offensive coordinator candidates are you going to be able to attract with a coach on the hot seat and no real answer, a quarterback? Feels like you need to hit a full reset of coaching the team at that point.” So very fair from it might be Kent K. It’s either Kent Hoder or Ken Thod. I’m gonna say you’re Kent. Shout out to Kent. I think I called him Ken earlier for that very reason to play it safe. Or he’s Ken Todd or it’s Kenthoder. That actually might be the one. I’m really hoping that it’s K and thod is the last name. I think you’re on to something. Uh Ken, please let us know what we need to call you. I I can’t go on with the show until I have this. We want to be addressing you by your proper name. So, I actually did have coordinator candidates that I wrote down for offensive coordinator, believe it or not. All right, first one, familiar name, familiar face, Brian Ael. Brian Ael potentially is the offensive coordinator for this team. Now I think it’s I think it kind of gets ugly if he’s the offensive coordinator. He’s Kent Hoder. It’s Kent. Yeah, he said Kent Hoder, unfortunately. Whoa. Whoa. But K and Thod is elite. There’s still time. You can change it. There is still time. Brian Dable obviously makes some a lot of sense just because he’s got the experience as an offensive play caller. Um it just it you start getting real tricky, right? I mean like if the Falcons season starts one and three, the pitchforks are going to be out. People are going to want Raheem out. They’re going to want, you know, Brian Dable to finish the year as head coach. Like you you set up a pretty explosive situation. That’s the problem. Right. Right. And the other guys are unproven guys. The one that I think is sort of the Hail Mary is getting Ryan Grubs back in the NFL. And the reason why is because Grubs was Pennix’s offensive coordinator when he was at Washington. He’s the whisperer. Now, right now, Grubs is back at Alabama under Dbor again because he was under Dbor when they were all at Washington, obviously. Now, he’s the offensive coordinator in Alabama. He was the offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks last season and he it was very strange like him and Mike Mcdonald just were like butting heads the whole like water and oil ve water and oil for sure. Um like gas and an open flame honestly that’s how it felt. But that’s pretty it just didn’t work for Ryan Grub at the NFL level. That’s I I think he’s a very smart offensive coordinator and he he’s kind of like in a little bit in the Todd Monkin bombs away. Yeah. Uh which I always liked, dude. Todd Monin for this team. Oh man, that we you and I love Todd Mon. I don’t know why the NFL I don’t know either. Whatever. We won’t go down that road today. I don’t know either. Colin said the panics whisper. Easy. Easy. Yeah. Uh little whisper and it rises up. All right. Easy. So, so what do we So, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? Obviously, we got to wipe it. The chats the the chat’s like a The chat’s like a King’s Landing crowd. You know what I’m saying? It’s so true. The chat’s a king, when we do fix your franchises, we’re Joffrey and they’re the King’s Landing crowd at an execution. They They want They want They came They came to see something, right? They got off work early. They’re gathering around the square. They don’t want to see this guy get pardoned. Chop his head off. Who cares if he’s king of the north? Spoilers. Sorry. When when Ned got the axe Mhm. How shocked were you on a television scale from 1 to 10? I didn’t read the the first book before I watched the show, so I didn’t know anything. So, are you standing right there? You’re like, you can’t do this. Not in front of a child. I Alyssa actually filmed my reaction. Oh man. And I’m I like walk off I I like walk off the couch and I go to the kitchen and I just like put my hands on the counter and I’m just like staring there because I didn’t start Game of Thrones until all of the seasons. I remember this. You live tweeted it. It was great content and I was live tweeting it and it was hilarious because I was, you know, like making predictions on a show that already finished that everybody in the world had watched other than me. And I was just like, there’s eight more seasons after this. You you killed them. You you killed literally the main character and there’s eight more seasons. What are we doing here? Right. Where do we go now? And boy, they they kind of got there, but Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, back to the Falcons. Some pe some pe some people were saying spoilers. Look, guys. Yeah, if you haven’t watched it by now. Yeah, I think Game of Thrones ended like seven years ago. You should keep watching it though because like even knowing even knowing exactly what you know now, how we might have spoiled it for you. The show is the best show of all time. It’s nuts. I agree. Even with the screwing up the ending, not for more spoilers, the seasons one through six is like all all time. Yeah. Even Even with zombie Ned Stark coming back, you know, and with a with a flamethrower strapped to his back. I can’t believe that episode in the Back to the Future car. He arrives at the wall. What’s up, boys? The tires are smoking. There’s fire coming from the skid mark. just mowing down white walkers. This is the dumbest podcast of all time. It really is stupid. Okay, fine. Um, let’s clean house. Let’s GM candidates. Basically, it’s the same ones that we mentioned on Monday. You know, Ian Cunningham, Ed Dods, Ryan Cen, Ray Agnu. You guys see those guys on the on the screen sort of where they’re at. Alec Callby, who’s the assistant GM for the Eagles, Cunningham, he’s the assistant GM for the Bears. Cen, who I really like a lot, VP of personnel for the Patriots. He’s he’s um Vable’s kind of guy that he want Vrabel wanted him as general manager with the Titans before they promoted Ran Carin and now he’s with the Patriots because he had him come over. But what do you think you you you would picks for the the Vikings right on Monday? You got any leaning with any of these guys here? Yeah, I’d go Halib for this job because I think they need somebody that can restock the assets analytically is my take. I think would be able to get them up to speed in valuing and acquiring capital the right way, utilizing cap space as a weapon kind of the way Philadelphia does with the compensatory picks and just give them a totally different approach. like you just you just hired last time the traditional area scout, you know, pathway. Now you’re going to go a totally different direction. Halib is a bold hire because he’s more of an outside the box kind of um you know, leadup throughout his career. But yeah, I I this is the team that I would I would go that direction for. Yeah, Halib’s kind of been the the right-hand man as Jordan Rodriguez wrote with these candidates to to Howie Roseman and Howie’s obviously very hands-on, right? I mean, it’s not like how he’s like not doing it himself, but um he’s been a big part of the the Eagles organization. A lot of people were asking for Ian Cunningham as well on Monday. Cunningham is is he was a finalist for the Jags GM job last opening uh interview with Titans as well. So I I think I would consider him I I like Cen, but if you like No, I mean I I think I picked last one. So if you want to take Cen this time, my whole Cen take is and I could be dead wrong. I think he’s just with Vrabel until like till the very end maybe. I think those guys lost a lot of trust in people with how things ended in Tennessee and now that they are entrenched in a place where they feel comfortable with the trust factor, they’ll just they’ll just stay there as long as they can. Okay. But once again, like I that’s my opinion. I don’t mind for this exercise hiring CEO. I like did he uh he’s been on a bunch of GM interviews over the last handful of seasons. I feel like a lot of these guys have. Yeah, was pretty deep in the Jets last year. Dods has been a finalist in multiple jobs, multiple years. Let’s go with Halib. Okay. Yeah, we’ll go Halibby here for general manager for the Falcons. Get the spreadsheets out. Get the spreadsheets out. Head coach. Head coach options for this team. I didn’t write any down because I didn’t know if we were getting rid of Raheem. the chat kind of like you said, King’s Landing crowd at us. Yeah. Yeah. They’re all screaming and throwing stuff. Schula is the obvious. Um Clint Kubak is another I don’t think Mike McDaniel’s getting fired at this point in Miami. He’s getting another year. It really feels that way. He’s dug himself out of the hole. Yeah. Kingsbury. I think I’d go Kubiaak. Have we done Kubak for another team yet? I know we oddly enough, I don’t think so. I don’t think we have. Let’s go Clint Kubak. Let’s go Clint Kubak here for their head coach. Kubiaak would certainly use more play action. There you go. He absolutely would. Um, so I’m saying Monin. I’d love Todd Mon to be the head coach of this team. He just I don’t think he’s going to get it. No, I don’t think And I think that Arthur Blank’s going to want like a hot shot um Kenny said, “Bring Mayok out of retirement for general manager. Shout out Mike Mayak.” Truly. Yep. Um legend of the industry. Okay, we’re going with Halibby as general manager. We’re going with Clint Kubak as head coach because I think that’s the way a direction that Arthur Blank’s going to go. Um and then we’ll dig into the the rest of the roster here in a second. Before we do that, to all the people with kids out there, parenting, so all sorts of high pressure decisions, right? Be difficult to tell if we made the right choice for our kids’ future, especially financially. Well, here is a little thing that you could do right now that could help your kids get a great financial head start. That’s opening up a UGMA kids investment account for fabric to start their investment journey. 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Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Start investing in your child today at meetfabric.com/stock exchange. That is meetfabric.com/stock exchange. Metfabric.com/stockchange. The portfolios are managed by Fort Washington Investment Advisors Incorporated. Additional services provided by Apex Coin Corporation. All investing is subject to risk. You can learn more at meetatfabric.com. Uh, all right. Before we get into the roster, you want to read off a couple of super chats here, middle of the show. Hell yeah, I do. We got a we got a big one here that I want to start with. Our guy Bengal, who we’ve, you know, we’ve had Bengal here on this channel. We’ve been on Bengals channel before. Uh, he and Connor obviously have a uh neverending rivalry, but we do love him. We appreciate this. He gave us a $50 super chat. said, “Keep up the great work, guys.” Good lad. Your genuine passion and insight is not only an inspiration, but it brightens my day and constantly brings a smile to my face. Proud of your energy and your efforts. Bengal, you are the man. I I think that it would be very strange if you subscribe to this show and you guys don’t know who Bengal is because the man’s got over half a million uh YouTube subscribers for a reason. He does excellent job producing some excellent content as well. So, if you follow this channel, make sure you guys are following Bengal’s channel, too. 601,000 subscribers for Bengal right now. That is uh a a true YouTube legend. Man’s on his way to a million. Man’s on his way to a million. He really is. He You You think Dan Moore and Peter got some freaking change to throw around? This guy is It’s true. He’s a kingpin. They call him Moneybags Bengal. That’s literally his name. All right. Uh Josh Reebar bags m bags just like Kent or Kent and daughter and thressive Borat be like my partner. Thank you. Thank you Josh from the beginning of the show. That’s really good. I like it. I love that. Uh number 17. Prime 71. Wait, is it 17 or 71? Which one? Anyways, uh when are the Steelers getting pimped? Um, please tell me that they are getting pimped. How deep do the issues go? Hey, good. They run deep. You know what’s a a hot topic picking up on your You love New York sports radio now ever since I introduced it to you. Of course. Yeah, absolutely. Mike Tomlin to the Giants. Yeah, we don’t have to even address it. I’m just I’m just laying it out. It’s like the callers and everyone loves it. Yeah, everybody just loves the change like that. Gaming time. Thank you for the $2 super chat to own me. Reminder for Connor that Ko played against men. He’s referencing that when people thought Kako could be a better prospect than Jack Hughes, it was because he played overseas against men. And yeah, it didn’t work out. Jack Kako’s no longer on the Rangers, but what are you gonna do? Life of a Ranger fan. What are you gonna do? Ethan $2 super chat said, “As a Panthers fan, I request not fixing the Falcons.” Well, you you you think I enjoy this? You think, right, you think I like doing this? Somebody’s got to Somebody’s got to do it. It’s going to be us. Damn it. McFarland, thank you for the super chat. Shout out my boy Stephen watching on his TV. Wait, shout out Stephen. Wait, hold on. So McFarland is is watching the show on Stephven’s TV. Or is he saying that Steven’s watching on his own TV? No, I think I think McFarland forgot a comma and and meant that he’s watching on his boy Steven’s TV. Yeah, there we go. Nice. Shout out to the boys. Uh $2 from Taw said bigger issue is Rich McCay in Blank’s ear, not Terry. You know, again, when when we start talking about ownership issues, I I don’t know. We don’t know. Those are incredibly difficult to analyze because a lot of the meetings that the owners have are like closed door stuff. So, thank you for the super chat. Odd estimate. Put this on the living room TV. Roommates’s girlfriend asked, “Who are the dorks on TV?” Never kicking her out of the house until now. Yeah, she’s got to go. No, she’ll learn. She’ll learn. Just She doesn’t have to go home, but she cannot stay there. Just do her a favor. Next time you have her phone, go to YouTube.comnflock exchange, subscribe to the show, and she’ll make sure you know she’ll get it next time that you turn it on. Um, Jberg’s $5. What’s your guys’ take on Gabe? Ais ais almost went with the soft. It’s like a sneeze. Aus top 50 pick. Led the Big 10 in sacks. Doesn’t mean everything, but he had a productive uh year for sure. Drake May. Um, no. I think AIS is solid, man. I It’s very strange. Illinois continues to use him as a standup rusher despite the fact that he’s like 6’6 and 280 pounds. So, I think he’ll play in a little bit of a different spot in the NFL, but um I I don’t know about top 50 pick, but I think that he’s solidly a day two pick in my opinion. I’m with you all the way. I’ve watched a lot of AIS this year. It’s weird cuz he was so good as a freshman, then he had a slump year and now he’s been back on the rise. So, um, and we’ll land right on day two. Zoinks, thank you for the $5 super chat. Don’t forget about Gators legend and current Falcon Felipe Franks. He walked so DJ Lagway could run. Hey, he is in this show. He’s in this show. You’ll know it when you see it. Uh, Moon Beam, man. $5 super chat. We need to have a real talk about Pennix being the future. uh when he’s healthy as a Falcons fan. A guy like Desmond Ritter would be a great signing. That’s a Saints undercover cop if I’ve ever seen one. Ritter’s not even in the league. Yeah, I don’t think he is. He’s not. I looked before the show cuz I was like, damn. Yeah. I mean, the issue with PennX is we’re on ACL tear number three now, unfortunately. Two to his right knee and one to his left. And that’s now getting really, really difficult to say, “Hey, yeah, we feel really good about this guy in the future.” And we’ll get to the roster part of this in a second. Micah Kate, does Staley scare you for Schula Staley? Is he talking about Brandon Staley? Like, does the Staley experience scare me off of hiring Shoula, I guess, is the question. I’m I’m guessing. No. No. Absolutely not. Um, man, the Staley era was weird, wasn’t it? Remember he made that video where he was like, I want all the smoke. Yeah. Yeah, it was. It didn’t go great. He got what you wanted. Is he the DC with the uh Saints still? Yes. Which was one of those like moments this year for me where I was like, “Oh, that’s where he is.” Yeah. Hey, getting a paycheck. Love it for a lot of money. Cole $10 super chat. Choose your fighter uh for lighting resources on fire. Fondo versus Quessie. Love the pod. Munchkins. Munchkins. That’s like I appreciate y’all. All right, dude. Uh I think Quie is Oh, man. See, I was going to say Quy because I think his draft history has been worse. However, I think it’s Quiy. Yeah, but like even just the James Pierce Jr. alone trade, the cumulative draft value lost in that trade, he got his ass on that one. It’s probably Terry’s probably more in the red. I don’t know, man. That’s it’s it’s not great. It’s not great. Both Both are like when you wake up, you don’t want to be there. You don’t want to be there. When you start your day at the casino hotel and you walk through the lobby cuz you have to go do something at 7:00 a.m. and the guys at the table have not gone to bed yet. Both of them are in that kind of red right now. The shirts are buttoned a little too far, the gold chain and the chest hair sticking out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Screw it. I’ll smoke a Marbor Red. Yeah. You You look You look over, the guy takes off his watch and puts it on the t in the middle of the table. Yeah. That’s when you know. That’s when you know you’ve been there too long. Uh yeah, that’s when you know. Nation Station Gaming. Mhm. Trevor, where my hat like Brian Flores Sikma? Yeah, you do got the be hat style. What does that mean? It’s just like is it low? No, it’s like just the right amount of curved brim but not overly curved, but you still got a little bit of a a midprofile. Yeah, I think Flores wears a hat because he doesn’t have hair. You have good hair. Thanks. Appreciate it. Nation, I feel like a little I feel Nation I feel like that was a little disrespectful and for that I’m going to blacklist you from getting an NFL. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. Uh Malachi Shaw, thank you for the $2 super chat. Hudat 94, thank you for the $2 super chat. And McFarland again, thank you for the $5 super chat. If Har stays, the OC will be the quarterback coach. Their quarterback coach. Who’s your quarterback coach? I’ll tell you right now. All right. And then I’ll read this one. This is the last super chat before we get into the roster here. Brochmo. Uh $10. Another great friend of the show. I’ve been on Brochmo’s channel a couple of times. I’ve done a couple of mock traps with him. It’s always a great time. Again, if you guys are following this channel, you should be following Brochmo’s channel as well, covering the NFL draft. I know he’s a Dolphins fan. He says, “Don’t let these tubs fool anyone. The Dolphins need to fix their franchise.” So I the Dolphins feature your franchise could still be coming bromo. It could be. But make sure you guys go check out their channel as well. The quarterback coach is DJ Williams, former quarterback. You said DJ Lagway. I was going to walk off the set. I was going to I was going to walk off. Uh he was a quarterback for Gramling State from 2011 to 2014. And then he’s been on NFL staffs for a long time now. Saints before the Falcons. All right. So DJ Williams maybe gonna get his shot. Wow. Um hold on one more colossal five. He’s got a nice gold chain in his head shot in his head shot. Yeah, he’s got like number one. The guy still does shrugs which I love that. All right. What’s his name? DJ Williams. He’s the Falcons quarterback’s coach. Still does shrugs and he’s got a sick gold chain. He’s Maybe they do keep Raheem and hire him, brother. Hold Wait. What? Hold on. Wait a second. What are we talking about this guy coaching for? Put on the pads. Yeah, I was gonna say, yep, we’re running wishbone. DJ Williams, you’re out there. Put on the pads. Colossal $5 super chat. That’s the last one. Love the show, guys. Much love from Sarasota, Florida. Hey, Sarasota, Florida. Bay Area, stand up. Let’s go. All right. Uh, taking a look at the roster now. Projected starting lineup. Uh, I have quarterback in question marks and I have panics. Like, you know, maybe, but I think it’s even ready to start the year. That’s the thing is is it’s a partial ACL tear, but he still had to have surgery and it’s still going to be a good uh amount of time before he’s able to ramp up and really play. I I feel like he could be ready to start the season next year, but you basically go into next season the same way that we talked about Minnesota with JJ McCarthy. You have to have something else. You have to have a legitimate option outside of him to at the very least start the season. And it I it’s not going to be Kurt Cousins. And I’ll and we’ll tell you why here in a second. Bean’s obviously the starting running back. You got Drake London at wide receiver. Uh the rest of the tight ends at wide receivers. Darnell Mooney is a free agent. Uh wait, is he? No, I don’t think he is. I think he is. No, no, no, he’s not. But he’s an easy He’s guaranteed to be cut. He’s an easy cut for this team. Kyle Pittz is a is is a free agent. Shoot, Tyler Alier is even a free agent for this team. They got moves they got to make to make this team better. Jake Matthews and Caleb McGary. In theory, you’re starting offensive tackle with Matthew Bersron and Chris Lintram. Uh, in theory, your starting guards. Um, they have Ryan Newsil at center, but they could upgrade there. So, potentially Newil um, but it might be an upgrade at center. I hate to stop you, but the chat is having a meltdown. The person that said the quarterback coach meant TJ Yates, who’s the pass game coordinator, would be up would be elevated to OC. I I say just put both of them in the octagon, right? Let them figure it out, right? You know, if you can’t physically overpower the other man, you don’t deserve to be the offensive coordinator. No, you don’t even wear a headset anymore. No. TJ TJ Yates. All right. All right. TJ Yates. McFar uh McFarland literally said, “I’m Walt in the car.” Screaming. No. Oh, man. Another jaw-dropping of tele. Shout out DJ Williams though. Getting some pub on the show. Getting some pub. Good. Yeah. We got We got over 900 people watching the show live. We love y’all. You guys are animals. You’re addicts even. And now they all know who DJ Williams is. They’ll never forget. Projected starting lineup on defense. We got Rrook Aro, Brandon Doris. I Zach Harrison could be the other defensive lineman because if you’re keeping Raheem, you’re still running a 34. If not, it could totally change. But you in theory have the pieces for a younger defensive line when those guys could still be there. Are they difference makers? Not necessarily. Is that why the Falcons aren’t great at run defense? Yes. Think that also goes into the linebacker level when you have Jaylen Walker who’s sort of like a hybrid on ball offball linebacker and then Devon Diablo has been hurt throughout this year. But yeah, that’s on Brook too. He and this is what how he likes his fronts to look and the beauty of it is when you’re winning they get home and close games. The problem is now this is the second year in a row of an Ober run unit being you know getting run over at times by the run game. You have James Pierce Jr. at one of the edge spots. I’d love for Brillian Tries to be the second edge spot, but he’s now I think missed is it the entire year both years in a row? I think he has. I feel like I have not seen him on the field at all besides summer in training camp and the preseason each of the last two seasons. That’s correct. Which is that’s a shame. You can’t depend on a guy unfortunately um going into next year. So the Oh, it’s the same knee both years, too. I wonder if they just move Jaylen Walker to edge. Yeah, because they already give him some looks there. So, right. And they just kind of lean in. They try to draft a linebacker. AJ Terrell’s at corner, but then other than that, they don’t have another outside corner. Billy Bowman potentially could play in the slot for them if you feel good enough about it because I think that he has some ability to do it if you’re comfortable. And then Xavier Watson, Jesse Bates, that’s going to be one of the best safety duos in the NFL. Yeah, I said it. Sam said Brilland Trice, real name, no gimmicks. Please tell me you know what lyrics come next, Connor. Um, no. Two trailer park girls go around the outside. Oh my god, I should have gotten that. That’s a disgrace. But it’s an incredible reference. It’s incred. Yeah. Unbelievable. Um, oh yeah, man said that uh Billy’s out with an Achilles tear. So, he tore his Achilles, so he’ll miss time going in next year. So, I guess they will will need somebody else who’s in the slot. I still I still really like Billy Bowman a lot. Yeah, he’s he’s one of those guys that he’s had like he’s had some really high highs this year and he’s had some lows where he’s gotten beat, but he’s got ball skills and that’s been kind of a mission for this team as well to have they have a lot of guys that could take away the football. Yeah. Um Garrett in the chat football analysis said Brilen Trice 16 pressure game in 20 2023 with Washington was absolutely electric. It was. I will point out that I the reason why I wasn’t the highest on Brilen Trice is because they very much put him in a wide alignment and they just let him run straight towards the quarterback without having to bend much. So unless he was going to an oddfront 34 team, he was not going to have that same s same kind of success or anything close to it. However, he did go to a three- four team. So I actually like this landing spot. uh we just have not gotten to see him unfortunately. Team needs I have quarterback, wide receiver, tight end, defensive tackle, and corner. Those are the three those are the five needs that I have for the Falcons. Yeah, this makes sense. Makes sense to me all the way. All right, cap space. I don’t expect this team to be super active in free agency, so this part will be somewhat quick. They have God, what a what a jump scare, Tyler. Good lord. Cook. Oh man. Uh for those of you who are audio only listeners on the show, uh our our chef and producer put as the picture for this slide, Kirk Cousins wearing all gold teeth. They have negative 10 million in effective cap space right now, which is the 23rd most in the NFL. They have 39 players under contract for 2026 as it currently stands. However, this is very easily uh remedied if they post June 1 Kirk Cousins. So, you’re just paying him more money, but you get more of cap saving from him. You save $35 million on the cap. Boom. All of a sudden, now you’re cap compliant and have plenty more in the tank. If you cut Darnell Mooney, who doesn’t have any guaranteed money left on his contract, you save $7.4 $4 million if you prejune one cut him, $11 million if it’s a post June 1 cut. Remember guys, you get two post June 1 designations. So you could do that for both of these guys and that saves about $42 million. That’s with that’s without any sort of restructures or any other moves that could gain you some cap space. So they should have a decent amount to be able to do some things in free agency, but I just don’t think they’re going to be very loud about it. I mean, are there any free agents? Well, think about think about the hire we just made. How be I think would get there and try to kind of give them a a clean slate where I’m not looking to open up all this cap space. I’m going to try to play the comp pick formula a little bit and we don’t have enough draft assets this year. So, I I really just need like a baseline start over. So, no, I don’t I don’t think they’d be spending money in free agency with a new regime. Um, somebody in the chat was also mentioning Kaden Ellis. So Kaden Ellis is a pending free agent for this team. Now he could be back to play at linebacker for them. So I I should have mentioned that. David Anyada is an also also a free agent. So is Leonard Floyd. Maybe they bring back Leonard Floyd because you don’t have Brillin Trice, right? Like a mercenary player. Tyler Algier is up for free agency. I don’t think you bring him back. No, I think I think he’ll get a chance to start somewhere. I agree. I think that he’s I mean Texans like I think Texans are interested in him. There’s like seven places where you go Tyler Algier could be the starter at that place. I agree. Kyle Pittz who I don’t think they’re going to bring back. I don’t think they’re bringing back Arnoldi. So Kaden Ellis maybe you’re bringing back on this team. But um All right. Let’s see if there’s any free agents that make sense for this team because I I guess I didn’t realize that it’s going to be that much money that they’re going to be able to have in free agency to do something with. Tyler Linderbomb’s the ultimate one that we talk about at center, but I I just don’t think he’s going to leave the Ravens that they’re going to figure it out there with him. Wide receiver, I could see them adding a wide receiver in free agency. Yeah, especially if Pennix is on track on a good timeline where you’re you’re trying to evaluate him in that year fairly before you you decide what you’re going to do as a new regime. George Pickkins, I don’t think gets out of Dallas. I mean, they’re gonna they’re going to need a tight end. Romeo Dos. Jaylen Naylor, I don’t hate either. That’s a good fit. I like Jaylen Naylor. Bigger role in Atlanta. Yeah, I don’t hate that. So, I could be down for Jaylen Naylor and who else is wide receiver for them? Like, wait, why the Ravens just gave Mark Andrews a big extension? Like, literally just literally eight minutes ago is the tweet. Interesting timing. Yeah, because I was looking at tight ends and then Why would they do that, dude? A three-year $39.3 million extension. 26 of it’s guaranteed. Okay. Well, that’s one tight end off the board in this exercise. Literally just happened. All right. Not getting that. Uh I am a uh I’m a Tylen Wallace guy. Interesting. So, try to get like a depth ad. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I’m So, all right. Jaylen Naylor and Tylen Wallace is two new wide receivers that you get there. I like that. And then at tight end, okay, we got David Jooku. I don’t hate that. That’s a splash ad. Hey, here’s an interesting one for you. All right. Is this a team that now goes after Isaiah likely? Whoa. Oh, nice. TV in the chat. I didn’t even see that, but there there you go. Yeah, because he is a free agent, right? And if the Ravens just paid Yeah, if the Ravens just paid Andrew is all that money. Yeah, I like this move. All right, let’s do it. So, all right, then the last one is a a corner. Let’s get some sort of cornerback before we go into the draft, right? I mean, take a chance on Eric Stokes. He’s played better this year, I think, from what I saw. Let’s see what the market looks like. It won’t cost you a ton of money. Clearly, I should peek at the chat, too. They’ve been coming up with the same ideas as us. Uh, corner. Does Connor read the chat? I was say I do, but I did not I do not read it when Trevor and I are perusing over the cap. Felipe Frank’s low moving cost. Yeah, correct. Doesn’t have to move at all, man. Yeah, you’d be looking at the Hey, you know who I feel like has played better this year? Uhhuh. Although maybe he doesn’t fit them depending when Billy Bowman is back. I feel like Cordell Flot has been better this year. He has. I think that’s I think that’s a decent call out. Yeah, he’s definitely he’s definitely had his best year in coverage. Josh, Montterk Brown. Oh, yeah. And Flats played, yeah, Flats played outside most of the year. Jaylen Watson or Josh Williams from the Chiefs, I think, are decent options here for sure. Um, let’s let’s pick one of these guys that we like. Free agency corner group’s actually viable. Yeah, I actually don’t mind this. This is probably where And we didn’t spend a lot at at tight end and wide receiver, so you could make a splash here. Are the Jags for sure gonna bring back Montterick Brown? Let’s see. They have Jordan Lewis. On Terrick Brown’s one of their outside starters. They traded for Greg Newsome. They have Jiren Jones. Travis Hunter. They have Travis Hunter. I feel like you can get I feel like you could get Montterk Brown. I would think he walks. Another guy that plays on the outside. Yeah, I’d go with Montterk Brown. He’s a guy we haven’t talked about on any of these shows yet. His best year is this year in coverage for sure. Yeah, good time to be a free agent for him. Decent the year before as well. Pretty good tackler. Let’s go with him. Let’s Let’s get him as an outside corner so we feel good about it. Okay. So, not a not a lively free agent class, but a different class. Some good value signings. Yeah, we’re going with Jaylen Naylor, Tylen Wallace, um Isaiah Likely, and then Montterk Brown. Those are the four guys that we’re sort of like centering around to sort of like build around what is a a young group of players as we get into the draft. Uh which we’ll fire up right now. Okay. No first round pick obviously. Sorry people. Um second round pick. Third round pick though. So that’s obviously how we’re going to do the exercise here. Whoa. Trees background. It’s a good background. It is a good background. Uh round four, round six. Round seven. So yeah, we don’t unfortunately Tyler don’t have anything in the first round. So there you go. Yeah, there’s the Falcons. Um three rounds. Let’s do it. Let’s see what the game plan is like and they’re all gone. Uh okay, pick number 41 in the second round is where we begin here. All right. So, I think that this pick, if we’re going to do two mock drafts, because we’ve been doing two mock drafts here for uh for every team as we we’ve done this fix your franchise exercise, we’re going to have the opportunity to pick, I think, corners and wide receivers as a sweet spot here at 41 or or linebacker, I think, as well. Yeah, CJ Allen sitting right there. CJ Allen would allow you to play Jaylen Walker at edge. We’ve we’ve gotten to see it, right? Yeah, we have. We We have uh another Georgia uh linebacker. So, we could go that strategy. Is there anything jumping off the screen at you for corner, for wide receiver, for for any of these guys? Maybe maybe edge rusher instead because you could you could have flexibility, right? If we like an edge rusher, then we can play Jaylen Walker more as a off linebacker. So, I I think CJ Allen is the best player we could take here. I think there’s a conversation to be had about Jeremy Bernard with the styler receiver. Ger Jeremy. Ah, damn it. Sorry. Hold on, folks. Hold on, folks. Chaos. had to fix uh had to fix my camera here. Um classic Trev. Jeremy Bernard would give us Drake London, Jeremy Bernard, Isa or Jaylen Naylor, Tylen Wallace, Isaiah likely and then be in that mix as well. I think that you can I think you could work with that. Let’s take him. Let’s let’s let’s see what it looks like here with Jeremy Bernard, the wide receiver from Alabama. Uh I I feel like we don’t always do as good enough of a job sort of talking through these prospects. Jeremy Bernard really good year this past season. Not the best athlete in the world, but somebody who I’m not saying that he’s going to be exactly like Chris Godwin, but he feels like that type of a player. Just so reliable and over the middle of the field player, a a backside dig guy, somebody who can win at the sideline as well. He’ll give you some yards after catch, but just a tough as nails reliable type of receiver. So yeah, great job. Very well done, Trevor. I’m guilty of just kind of glossing over it because we talk about these guys so often. Yeah. All right. And we know some people are just here as Falcons fans. Yeah. So, what are we thinking here in the third round? Probably looking to help the defense again. Linebacker, corner, maybe like Whit Weeks. Yeah. What’s Wick gonna do now that uh his future father-in-law is his coach? I’d be getting the hell out of there, boy. I I would be packing my bags. Yeah, I’ll go play pro ball. Jake Galde is a a very interesting choice here because he sort of gives you the same flexibility that Jaylen Walker does, but Galde is more of that offball linebacker. He plays more um as a true offball linebacker. Really good run defense grades, good coverage grades this season. adds size to the middle of your defense, which is needed. I like that. That’s a good That’s a really good lean. I think I’d be okay with either of those guys because Tory York’s not here, is he? Can you scroll up to see if if Torian York from Nah, he got picked. Ah, he got picked. Oh, he got picked five picks before. Would have loved him. He would have been great in the middle of that defense. All right. What do you think? I I Yeah, I think Gald Day is kind of the right fit. Okay. All right. All right. We We take Gay here. So So the first mock draft that we have, we’re still rolling with PennX next year. Um I guess we didn’t sign a veteran quarterback when we were going through free agency. So you have to sign some sort of a veteran in free agency, but veteran quarterbacks are actually available. It’s thinner than you’d think because all these backups this year signed two-year deals. Yeah. Daniel Jones, Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, Marcus Mariota. Obviously, if you can get him back, but you probably can’t. No, that was a bad ending there. Yeah. Um, bad ending. Tyrod Taylor, Jimmy Garopppolo. Yeah, I was going to say Tyrod and Jimmy kind of fit that. Tyrod actually is probably perfect. Tyrod Tyrod does work out pretty well for them. So, I don’t I don’t hate that. Trey Lance, at least Tyrod gives you a floor. Teddy Bridgewwater if he wants a chance to star for a little bit, you know. So, one of those guys. So, I’m okay with the veteran quarterback market. I really am. And then, like you said, like we could hit of a harder reset if we want to next year when we actually have a first round pick. So, that’s what that’s this first draft we ended up going with wide receiver and linebacker. So, in this situation, Montic Brown is is playing on the outside with uh AJ Terrell. You’re hoping that Billy Bowman could be a slot defender for you when he gets back. Uh you got Golden Day, you got Devon Diablo in the middle, which is a good amount of speed, which I like that athleticism there. You got James Pierce Jr. and you got Jaylen Walker playing on the edges and then you got a rotation of interior defensive line guys to feel decent about and then a pretty good wide receiver room that’s uh changed from what we did in free agency too. So, okay. So, I like that. Let’s Let’s do another Let’s do another mock. Let’s see what we got at 41 this time. Could go Allen’s still on the board again. Chris Bell is on the board. AIS is maybe a smidge early for AIS. I think it is. Yeah. CJ Allen’s a really good football player, man. I think him and Anthony Hill are pretty good. I do like those guys. They beef up your run defense. They really do. I think that probably makes the most sense unless you’re going like quarterback in round two. I know. I’m kind of like wonder do we go CJ Allen and then take a quarterback in round three. Oh, would we not get Nusmeer in round three? Oh man, Conpion went at the top of the second round. That would have been nice. Awesome for them. Yeah, I know the chat really liked that idea, too. Yeah, Romelo Height also went four, five picks earlier, man. Romelo Height. Romelo Height and and James Pierce Jr. That’s kind of cut from the same cloth, but like right those dudes would be tough to stop. All right, so you want to go CJ Allen, you want to go to linebacker here? Yeah, I I just the only before we hit draft, the only reservation that I have here with this is like I know this is funny coming from the guy that when we did the mock draft before I took Sony Styles of the Rams at number 10 overall, but like when you don’t have a lot of premium picks and the first one that you make is a is an offball linebacker, you just got to make sure you’re getting the right guy, right? like you just you have to make sure that this player is going to be worth it for you because if you’re just doing the regular draft sort of coin flip in the air, he’s going to hit or he’s not, you’d rather do that at a more premium position. Are you worried about that at all with taking Allen here? Just because the way the board fell, no, there’s not a player that I I love at a premium spot here, unfortunately. Wait a second. Jagger’s saying take my sources are saying he’s coming out. Hold on. Wait a second. This guy. What’s going on over here? This guy Jagger with the golf pick. Yeah, he’s in the No. All right. So, you want CJ Allen? Yeah, let’s do it. Okay, let’s take CJ Allen here. Lenor ain’t gonna be there. I don’t think Lenor will be in the draft. I agree. That’s why I I don’t really want to take him there. Um Dylan Everett’s interesting. Oh, Skyler Bell. Skyler Bell. Skyler Bell. Ah, Skyler Bell. Get a little bit of a technician. Yeah, we’re kind of running back the same draft. It’s just I know we flipped We flipped the but some people are really going to like CJ Allen. Some people are really going to like Skyler Bell over Jeremy Bernard. Like it’s Can Can I see edge rusher really quick, Tyler? Probably got real thin at this point. Oh man, Kenyatta Jackson Jr. played really well against Michigan. He did. He’s going to go earlier than that than that. Not earlier than 73. Earlier than the rank. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. The heartbreaker. Clean. Cle. Why did we call him that again? No idea. I’m almost positive we called him the heartbreaker. Probably. We got so many bits on this show. I don’t even I don’t even I just see a name George Gums out there. Oh man, that’s your boy. That is my boy, Gumby. Um, so the reason why I wanted to see Edge Rusher is because with with taking CJ Allen, would we go edge rusher again? And now all of a sudden you’re in a spot where because Devon Diablo is entering the last year of his deal. You could move on from him if you wanted to because he’s been hurt this year. You could have Jaylen Walker and CJ Allen as your linebackers and then James Pierce Jr. and an edge rusher of your choice, right? Kinyatta Jackson, whatever, at as the outside edge. The thing that would worry me about that is Allen and Walker are much better run defenders than they are coverage backers. So, I would be worried about the Yeah. like not having balance. Yeah, I would still take Skyler Bell here. But Jan ref headbutter Barnum. He was definitely trying to show him what was happening. Yeah. And then it got me’d to oblivion that he was headbutting a ref. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. I do think that that’s probably what happened. Skyler Bell. Skyler Bell. All right. Skyler Bell it is. Because look, we they have a better edge depth than in fourth round. We talked through it. All right, there we go. We got We got We got the two drafts here for We have pimped the Atlanta Falcons. We have pimped the Atlanta Falcons. We got the two drafts um that you guys can choose from. We’re either getting Jeremy Bernard and Jake or CJ Allen or Skyler Bell. You can put on top of that getting a veteran quarterback, some sort of a veteran quarterback, as well as Jaylen Naylor. Um, Tylen Wallace, Isaiah Likely, and who else was the other one? Montic Brown that we got in free agency. We got Clint Kubak as the new head coach. We have um Alex Halib as the new general manager. And it’s clean slate there for the Atlanta Falcons. We’ll see what Penn has to offer next season, but if not, man, we’ll have a first round pick the next year and the 2027 quarterback class looks a lot better. Um, we’ll stick around and we’ll read some of these super chats. But, uh, we’ll we’ll do that in the after show portion of this. Uh, if you guys want to show, if you guys want to follow the show on all our social medias, uh, NFL show on Tik Tok, on Instagram, uh, Twitter, all that good stuff. Tampa Bay Trey, Conor J Rogers. That’s how you can follow us. Hey, really quick, I know that some of you guys have already started to do this. Shout out to you guys for listening to the podcast so much that it’s in your top five on your Spotify rap. We we just we’re so humbled and we love seeing stuff like that. I’ll try to retweet as many as I can from the the NFLSE account and from the Instagram and everything. So, if you tag us, we would love to share it just because we love sharing that stuff with the addicts. But shout out to everybody who listen to this show this year. We truly appreciate you guys. We say this every single show, but it’s the community aspect of it that makes this so much fun, that gives us so much energy to do this show, that makes it so much fun for us to prepare for and get to talk with you guys about. So, uh, we we really appreciate it. Um, like I said, we will read some of the super chats here in the after show that we’ll do here in a second before we sign off. But Connor, anything else before we get out of here? I echo that. It was it’s an awesome day when Spotify wrapped comes out because the mentions are just people saying I can’t you know I I w listen to you guys or watch you guys for all of this. You’re in my top five and it’s really cool man. It means a lot to us. That’s super special to be mentioned in any of those. So thank you to all the addicts out there. It’s hilarious seeing I’m addicted to sex in my mentions uh 40 different times. You were supposed to save that part for the after show Connor. Yeah. Whoops. Uh yeah. Not me. Don’t clip me out, internet. All right, I’m done. Uh, appreciate it. Love you guys. Uh, stick around to hear us read the rest of the super chats that we had on the show. But if you’re not going to do that, for Tyler Cook, our chef, producing the show, for Conor Rogers, I’m Trevor Sigma saying thank you guys so much for watching the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. We’ll see you guys next week.

Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers break out the excavator and demolition gear to dig into the Atlanta Falcons. They recap all the moves they’ve made in recent years, identify the key players, build a free agency plan with specific targets, and give you a 3-Round Mock Draft.

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TIMESTAMPS:
0:00:00 Intro
0:13:11 How We Got Here
0:19:48 Michael Penix Jr…
0:31:33 General Manager & Draft History
0:50:28 OC and HC Candidates
1:00:11 Fabric By Gerber Life
1:01:45 Superchats
1:11:49 Roster, Cap, Cuts, Free Agency
1:25:44 Mock Draft v1
1:31:22 Mock Draft v2
1:37:04 Outro

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