{"id":868423,"date":"2026-04-17T13:51:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868423\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:51:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:51:31","slug":"nfl-re-draft-lands-falcons-steelers-superstar-t-j-watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868423\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL re-draft lands Falcons Steelers superstar T.J. Watt"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a minute there, it appeared that the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> had their guy.<\/p>\n

With their first pick in the 2017 NFL draft, Atlanta took Takk McKinley out of UCLA. McKinley came with some promising traits and a colorful personality, replete with a picture of his grandma and an adorable French bulldog named Codeine.<\/p>\n

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McKinley’s pro career got off to a promising start, as he posted six sacks in his rookie season to go with 10 QB hits. The following year Takk bumped those numbers<\/a> to seven sacks and 15 QB hits. He might have been on the verge of breaking out and becoming a Pro Bowler, but it was all downhill from there.<\/p>\n

Injuries took their toll and McKinley managed just 4.5 sacks over the next two years, an aggravating number given the pressures he produced – Takk just never figured out how to close the deal consistently. After the 2020 campaign he was let go and landed in Cleveland<\/a>. He did not suit up for a team last season, meaning his career is likely overwith.<\/p>\n

It didn’t have to go this way, though. There were still plenty of (future) great players on the board when Atlanta took McKinley. A re-draft from Bleacher Report<\/a> has them erasing that mistake and replacing Takk with Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> edge rusher T.J. Watt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“McKinley appeared in 22 games after leaving the Falcons but hasn’t played since 2024. Making his 2017 selection look worse is the fact that the Pittsburgh Steelers landed edge-rusher T.J. Watt a few picks later. Watt, an eight-time Pro Bowler and four-time first-team All-Pro, would be a logical target for Atlanta\u2014and a few other teams\u2014in a 2017 re-draft.”<\/p>\n

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No prospect is a guarantee, no matter how promising – but Watt came into the league as a fully-formed superstar. In 135 career games he’s racked up 115 sacks, 244 QB hits, eight Pro Bowl appearances, a Defensive Player of the Year award and four All-Pro nods, giving Watt a strong case to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame some day.<\/p>\n

Every team has misses that they’d like to run back, but this was a particularly bad one by the Falcons. The good news is they can’t blow a first-round pick this year, because they don’t have one.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Takk McKinley out, T.J. Watt in for Atlanta Falcons in NFL re-draft<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a minute there, it appeared that the Atlanta Falcons had their guy. With their first pick in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[15594,223,254,2554,85,117802,224,7,69882,6,57,19837],"class_list":{"0":"post-868423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-2017-nfl-draft","9":"tag-atlanta","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons","11":"tag-atlantafalcons","12":"tag-cleveland","13":"tag-colorful-personality","14":"tag-falcons","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-mckinley","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","19":"tag-watt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116420377467463820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}