 We welcome you to Flowery Branch and the Ticketmaster Studios, West Durham, Derek Rackley, Dave Archer. This is the Falcons 2023 pre-draft show presented for you tonight by Truist and the full hour ahead exclusive visit coming up with Falcons General Manager Terry Fontenot, head coach Arthur Smith. The impact of what's already happened to this Falcons roster in free agency and before we're done, they call it our expert analyst selections of what Atlanta will do in tonight's first round. Bottom line is the excitement of the draft is real and it's real in Atlanta, right? Well first of all I just want to say I'm glad to be up with you guys. You guys are kind of the veterans here of this free draft show and I'm kind of the rookie so I'm joining in but I am. I'm excited about this. I think back to the year 2000 when I came out, first of all I can't believe it was already 23 years ago and the excitement that I had as a player I can only imagine it's the same for those guys that are potentially going to be drafted tonight but I'm excited to be here to chop it up with you guys and see who are going to be the next young players to put on the Falcons. Let's go! It is time. Yeah it's been a fun free agency period. Atlanta has done an unbelievable job in free agency. Now we get open those Christmas brothers. It's Christmas tonight. We're going to open up those and you got to pick your own packages. How about that? Get an opportunity to select some guys that are going to add this roster in what has been already an unbelievable offseason for the Atlanta Falcons and adding personnel and creating depth. Remember when I was a kid, don't you always want to pick the biggest box, right? It's not because maybe the TV or something was in there. I don't know if it's going to be the pick in the biggest box but hopefully the fastest box. The fastest box. Okay. How did we get to this though? I mean you mentioned 2000 Arch was a handful of years before that when he was taken out of Iowa State and here's the deal. This has become one of the five biggest nights in the national football league. I mean Super Bowl is still number one, right? But the draft's not far behind here Dave. How do we get to this night being this? Well at the NFL. The NFL that's the behemoth 94 of the top 100 TV programs us last year were NFL games or NFL opportunities properties. So what we did was we got rid of the chalkboard and the grease board and now we have these all this dynamic stuff to look at and stages for people to walk across and gigantic hugs and we've got we've got concerts before the things start. They created a monster situation but it's what the NFL is. It's the it's the favorite sport in the country that everybody's locked on to and everybody wants to know everything they can about it. And here's the irony of it. One of the great cities for the NFL is Kansas City. One of the heritage cities of the AFL of our hunt and unbelievable history. Oh by the way they've been pretty good here recently. So they're hosting tonight and they're expecting somewhere in the neighborhood before the weekend is done of about 250,000 people to be their butt rack. The core idea here is not changed. The event has getting better is job one for 32 teams. You go back 10, 20, 34. However many years you want to go back the number one goal for every team here the Atlanta Falcons and 31 others is how do we make our roster better? How do we bring in a guy coming from college fit him into the culture the chemistry in the system that we already have in place. Some of it will be new especially in the defensive side of the ball for the Atlanta Falcons. But how can we bring these guys in and make our football team better and find a way to play into the month of January which is something that the Falcons have not been able to to do over the past few years. You get the right hits. You hit on the right guys and they end up developing through your franchise. Now you're playing into January. I think the rewarding part about it is guys is the frameworks in place. You've established a physicality with this foot team is going to play with on the on the offensive side of the ball with the run game. You've talked about how you're going to play for 60 minutes which they've done the last two seasons. That framework's in place. The culture if you will is in place. You've added some people to that and now you're going to get adds more to that. Well it's an interesting scenario for Atlanta because it's been a couple of years where Terry Fontenot and Arthur Smith have had to go brick by brick if you will in rebuilding this franchise. However the offseason momentum is real. The excitement for this football team is real. There's no doubt about that. And it's clear that Terry and Arthur embrace these challenges and more when they arrived in Atlanta a couple seasons ago and now this team finds itself on the rise. This was never going to be an overnight haul. This is not going to be something that you get a new coaching staff in here. You get a new front office in here and everything magically changes. As you all know we went into last year with the most dead money in the history of the NFL. 86 million dollars in dead money. You knew that it was going to take a couple of years to even begin to see what Terry Fontenot and Arthur Smith want to build in Atlanta. We have an open checkbook for the first time. We do have a lot of cap space and we're excited about our plan going in the free agency. Patience from the organization, the patience from the owner, the patience from the fans. Because of that discipline we're able to put ourselves in a little bit better position right now. We've got to make a splash. In free agency first? Absolutely. Go get a Jesse base. Go get a guy that can help our football team win. But more importantly, Mike, we are news. We are moving the needle. We haven't done that. You're always building, you want to build a championship roster not just for one year but for several years because you're putting together a puzzle. You're not trying to add a few players. We have a whole team that we have to put together and so you want to make sure that you're doing the right things and staying within parameters at every spot. Jonu Smith, they make a trade for him. Tidy in from New England. Every time I step on that field you're going to get every ounce of me, every passion. Tosses end zone. Oh, Jonu Smith. Put the ball in my hands anywhere on the field and I'm just going to make plays. David Anyamada comes over from the set. I play my hearts out. Expect great things. Wins on every down, every down in distance. Runs into his own blocker and then is brought down by Anyamada. Hey, Ellis, a linebacker who had seven sacks last year. He just goes out in balls. Steps up in the pocket and gets sacks. Caden Ellis. I'm so excited. It's just such a blessing, thankful and I'm ready to come and put on a show out here. Start with the Taylor-Heineke piece. Expected to sign with the Atlanta Falcons. Full circle. That's where it all started. Found a little football here. Grew up in Swanee. He's coming in to be the backup quarterback. But he's a guy that anytime he's gotten an opportunity to play, he's gone on and he's done really well. Yeah, I plan on just trying to be that veteran presence but hopefully Desmond can stay healthy and I can help him in any way he needs. The other thing the Falcons have done today and this is the big splash. It's Jesse Bates. You got a lot of talent, a lot of young people and a lot of great people that care about winning. So like I said, I'm excited to be a part of this. I saw a great opportunity for me to come in and feel like I can be a difference maker on this defense. I think it's just going to be a great opportunity for me to go out there and play and make some big plays. I'm just excited for the opportunity and to be able to play with the guys and really see what we can do this season and I think we'll shock some people. This year, this team's going to be a very competitive, tough team and won a lot of ball games. Arthur Smith said he wanted a violent deline and I could bring a lot of violence. I think that we're going to put each other. It's going to be competitive. By the end of the day, we're going to bring the best out of each other. No, we got to bring the A out and we got to make sure that everybody in the A is knowing that the Falcons here too and the South got something to say. They are building that team piece by piece. The next big piece, the number eight overall pick in the draft, what's their strategy going into next month? What it helps when you do a lot of good things in free agency and whether you're moving around, whether you're moving up or moving down, it helps you to have discipline and say, let's just continue to improve this team. Knowing who they are, if they're truly passionate about what they do, they want to be the best football player they can be, they want to be the best person they can be. We believe we have a strong culture and a really good locker room and we want to make sure we add to that. Well, the one thing you find when you hear Terry Fontenot and Arthur Smith talk about the last two years, you respect number one, their discipline in doing it. Number two, the fact that you knew that you weren't going to have a full load of ability to do things financially and otherwise, maybe until now. And it strikes me every time I hear them talk about that build, how important what has happened the last 90 days and now what's going to happen this weekend. Yeah, I mean, I think you go back, you kind of talked about it West, two years when they came here, it was like Terry Fontenot probably so excited to be getting his first general manager position, but then looking at all of the X's and O's, if you will, of the roster and the salary cap situation and he probably had one of those, okay, I got my work cut out for me because they did. They were so strapped from a cap perspective, they were going to have to eat so much money into the cap, they knew it was going to be a process. And I went back to a quote that Terry Fontenot said just a few weeks ago. He said, we had to add to every phase, we just want to make sure we have the right discipline. We have to set parameters because if we don't, we'll find ourselves in a bind again. So they had to be very disciplined these last two years, but they finally got themselves to a point to where they could be players in free agency. They could truly go out and try to find difference makers and they were able to do just that. Yeah, and I think that deep sigh you talked about was he knew what he was getting himself into, it was presented to him as he began to evaluate this job before he took it, but that deep sigh was who this really is going to be an interesting ride. And it's been one that he's shown a tremendous amount of discipline, both he and Arthur Smith working in lockstep to secure talent, to put a team on the field that frankly has been extremely competitive in the first two seasons. You're talking about 13 of the 16 games this last, 13 of the 17 games this year were one score games. You went from not being able to win in your own building to win in six of the nine games that were played in Mercedes Benz Stadium. So the thing has begun to turn and he's turned it with guys that he had to go find to kind of try to plug in because of what you're talking about being strapped. But I think that now with his ability to kind of spread his wings a little bit and then go find the right pieces to plug in, it should be pretty rewarding. Well, they both respected the process. They covered the checks and balances you got to do. And now the free agency hall is being lauded by just about everybody that covers the NFL as one of the best in terms of filling need. It seems like they have found an answer for every possible solution that they had to attack when they, as you said, they attacked the roster. Well, I think that answer may be a little bit bold. I think he certainly certainly have gone out and they've secured better talent. I think when you look at the roster, the 53 man roster, how many of you are actually on the roster right now, it's a much deeper roster rack than they've ever had before. If you get a guy go down, you're going to plug another guy and you go, wait a minute, I like that guy. That guy might be a starter, you know, and when those kind of deals we see it in the secondary. We see it in a lot of places and they addressed everywhere on the team. It wasn't just and he said he was going to do this in January. We're not just looking at going and getting a quarterback because we got a young dude here or find a guy to play receiver. We're going to attack every level of the defense. Every facet of the offense is going to get addressed and they did that. Yeah, and as a football guy and maybe call it a little bit of an average fan, you just kind of see all the signings. You're like, Oh, God, you know, they've added a lot of really good players. But then as I started to really dig deeper, getting ready for this pre draft show, you could start looking at the current roster that they had. And then all of the additions in every single year, fellows, they have a tough job narrowing it down to the 53 man roster. But to your point, Arch, about some of the guys that they're going to have that maybe your second string, maybe your third string, they're really going to have some difficult decisions this year because they've got some players on this roster that go three, four deep. They want it to be difficult. They want that competition. Terry Fontenau says iron sharpens iron. This is going to be one of the first years where there's going to be some really good players that potentially don't make this football team. All right. I'm going to put the expert analyst on the spot here. Who's the most important free agent signing? Can we can we kind of initiate him like some of the things that you and I do together on the podcast? Sure. Let him know that it's not just one. You're going to ask a question. We're going to kind of change the rules a little bit. I'm going to give you two. I'm going to give you two signings. And I'm going to go with Jesse Bates, obviously one of the biggest splashes that we made in Free Agency, but I'm going to combine him with Kaleas Campbell. You get those two guys on the back in the front of this defense. Jesse Bates, maybe one of the better players at his position in the National Football League, bringing in experience, bringing in playmaking ability. And we'll, from day one, we'll kind of demand the respect because of what he's done throughout the course of his career. And then you have Kaleas Campbell, who may not be the most dominant defensive end right now in his career. But when you talk about a guy that opens his mouth in the locker room or on the practice field, every single person will stop and listen to him. Because of what he's done, because of the teams that he's been on, and we're talking about a Walter Payton man of the year, one of the most respected players in the entire National Football League. You got those two guys as leaders, as captains, as quarterback of your defense. It's a pretty good start to the offseason. Well, another thing Rack will tell you as we've worked together is you got to cheat the other guy a little bit. And that's pretty strong when you just came with there. So I'm going to cheat the game a little bit here. And I'm going to go with defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen. Oh, you're completely cheating today. It's Jerry Gray coming in as the defensive coaches here. I think you got Jerry Gray who comes in as a former D.C. at two places in the National Football League. One of the more respected defensive back coaches in the league played D.B. was the number one pick out of Texas. Knows everything there is to do about the defensive back position. You bring him in to aid first time defensive coordinator, was a co-defensive coordinator in New Orleans over the last couple of seasons. And think about the teams that we played. We've called the games. Those games against New Orleans are tough. And they are very difficult to handle defensively. He's going to bring that attitude to this team with the help of Jerry Gray and tutoring some of those guys maybe young or old and getting them ready to dial into play. All right. So let's pivot from the Falcon Free Agency Hall, which as we said a moment ago has been lauded by most everybody as one of the best in the league to now what happens in the next three days because the reality of this is Atlanta now gets an opportunity to match. You told me a month or so ago the door is wide open for the next three days. Five picks in the first 113 for Terry Fontenot as we take. How do you then put perspective on what Atlanta needs to do in this draft? Well needs is an interesting word to use because certainly you can you could plug some guys in. But I think what they've done is they opened the door as you mentioned because of what they did free agency. They're not pigeonholed into having to go after somebody or reach for somebody because they need this. Now certainly there's some places they need to bolster whether it's the edge rush add another corner whatever it is but they have the ability to flex out and get those guys whenever they feel like that's the best player on the board. You'll hear Terry say that a number of times. I think that's the beauty of it and there's enough draft capital with five those five picks you're talking about to be able to move around if you want to remember they traded up to get Arnold Evacati late in early the first round early in the second round he was projected as a first round pick. So I love the versatility they have. I think they're a wild card in the draft. I don't think you know what they're going to do. Yeah I agree. I mean they could stand pat at eight and end up with a really good player. They could trade up. They could trade back. They've got a lot of options here because they had such a successful free agency period. But when I look at this draft whether it's the first round pick or you go second third fourth I think they just need players that strike fear into the opposing team and that could be taken a lot of different directions but the way I look at it is pass rusher's been a struggle a little bit here for Atlanta. How about bringing in a guy that strikes fear into opposing offensive tackle or a defense offensive coordinator that says you know what I got to make sure I have a tight end here because if I don't this guy is going to give us a problem or a wide receiver that has so much speed that when he gets on behind the defense he's going to create an explosive play if not a touchdown. Anything like that a player that strikes fear into the opposing team opposing players opposing coordinators that's what they're looking for. Would Ryan Nielsen say to back up what Rack is talking about in his introductory press conference we want to play with violence on the defensive side of the football. I mean that sends chills down my back and he's going out and gotten some of those guys but that's what Rack's talking about find those kind of guys on both sides of the ball that can make you have a problem trying to prepare. That's terrific stuff. All right so you know how the Falcons have set up their roster through free agency and what they retained from a season ago but what about the rest of the NFC South. The division lines have changed a little bit new coaches and new markets so to speak. So let's welcome our friend Steve Weiss from NFL Network into our pre-draft show presented by truest tonight and the landscape of the offseason Steve. So now as we start this draft who do you think the favorite is in the NFC South. Yeah great question Weiss. Look the state of the NFC South is the division itself is wide open. So let's start with the New Orleans Saints because they're the team that's got the most established experience. Defensive lead team Cam Jordan, Marshawn Lattimore to Mario Davis shouldn't change too much because Dennis Allen is still going to oversee that but they are going to miss defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen an awful lot. That's talking to people with the Saints and then Derek Carr is going to come down there. He's got weapons. He's got a very good offensive line. So can his experience and the fact that he's a very good decision maker get this offense back on track that's the key. Now let's go to Tampa Bay. Who's their quarterback? Is it Baker Mayfield? Will it be Kyle Trask? Either way it's not going to be Tom Brady. The main thing that the Buccaneers have to figure out is can they run the football. For two years Tom Brady gave them a lot of gloss over to some flaws on their offense. Their offensive line was nicked up last year. If those guys come back healthy that should help. Defensively they still have a lot of good players in place. So they should be competitive but that depends on the quarterback. That quarterback will or will not turn the ball over. Carolina definitely a team on the rise. They have got some defensive pieces. They've invested in the offensive line. Now will it be their quarterback? Bryce Young, CJ Stroud, can they adapt quickly? They've got an incredible offensive staff. I mean Thomas Brown, the former UGA running back comes over as the offensive coordinator. You've got Frank Reich, you've got Jim Caldwell, you've got Josh McCown. The brain power is immense but that's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. What's going to be the actual voice guiding that rookie quarterback. And then let's come to the Falcons. Okay they've established themselves as a physical run first team. But now you bring in John U. Smith to go with Kyle Pitts, Drake London. How is the passing game going to change? Especially now the Desmond Ritter who can run but he's more of a dropback quarterback. How is that going to complement the run game? And then you see defensively all the pieces that they've added in free agency starting with safety Jesse Bates, David Anyamata at defensive tackle. You know they just add some really nice pieces on every level of this defense. Ryan Nielsen he's got to put it all together but again the talent there along with some of the buying and the chemistry that they've developed should make the Falcons tough. But this is a bunched up group West here in the NFC South. We'll just see how many teams can get on that plus side of the 500 record. Okay Steve thanks very much. Look forward to having you back with us later in the program. But in the final hour before the draft starts tonight Tori McElaney of AtlantaFalcons.com sat down with head coach Arthur Smith and GM Terry Fontenot about their mindset going into the eight o'clock start. We're inside the war room and you guys are on the clock and it may or may not be the number eight pick. I mean the draft is so unpredictable. Trust all the work that's gone into it because it is unpredictable. You game all that out. You have so many it's exhaustive having all the conversations of all the different scenarios. Whether we want to trade down or not again if we get a great offer always consider that but you've got to be all right going to make that pick at eight here we go. A lot of people say best player available. Sure but best player available if you're loaded at tight end like we feel right now. What you don't want to do is get desperate when you're pulling a guy you've got down here and then you put him with an eighth pick and then it's probably unfair. That player if you trust how you the process and how you grade it. Look at this offseason acquisition. Welcome Jesse Bates. I've been one of the best safeties in the league. Arthur Smith is reunited with John Newsmith. How about this one? David O'Yanada. When you added so many good players to the team like you say you don't feel desperate. Well we're not throwing darts. It's not like draft day with Kevin Costner. It certainly doesn't feel like that. It certainly doesn't feel like it does when you're calling plays in the game and you've got a forty-second clock. A lot of value has been found in like the fifth round. What confidence does what they have done in their development give your staff about not just identifying talent but developing that talent. Never about a hundred percent. I mean there's something that's happening or you get to the point where we're at right now. It gives you confidence but you never can get complacent thinking just because hey we hit in 21 on a certain spot or 22 that we've got all the answers because you don't. We're human beings that are assessing other human beings right so there's no perfect science. It's not a math equation where we say okay if we do this this and this and this will happen and this is the desired outcome. The numbers are what they are. I mean the amount of guys we have on our roster now going to the draft and we've had the last couple years it's going to be a hard competition. Is that what y'all set out to build the very first day when y'all got in here we were like we want to create this environment where it is difficult to get on. Yeah iron sharpens iron like man sharpened man and the other minds that we have to worry is we always look at it like the players that are the 90 players that are here they're not just competing with the 90 players here they're competing with the other 31 teams players outside the building. Even get into the seasons you know something that you don't have any major injuries it's gonna be a hard roster to make and that's where you want to be and that's where we feel really good and get headed into the draft and in training camp. It is it's 365 247 we're constantly looking to improve this roster because it's going to bring out the best in the people and the cream really rises in competitive situations. Tori thanks very much great stuff with Terry and Arthur we appreciate it now I've done a little math here Rack and Arch will tell you it's you know math can sometimes be a little tricky here. If you take the end of the 22 roster and the potential 23 week one roster I've got eight new starters and that's before the draft six on defense and two on offense so the the change in attitude the change in not only in the building but certainly among the fan base is certainly merited here but we all know no guarantees in the NFL so what are you missing I guess what are you looking for in this draft to amplify what you've already done well you got to put all everything together right we had this free agency that was everybody would kind of laud it was successful brought in a lot of really good players they got another really important test or really important element of the offseason coming this weekend right bringing that piece into it but then as you know we talked a little bit about culture we've talked about the organization you've got to put all that stuff together because as you know arch you can have a bunch of really talented players and if they all don't learn the scheme and they don't want to learn how to play together and they don't really buy into what the coaching staff is selling you won't have success you can have as many talented players if you want but if they're not bought in to what this coaching staff is trying to do we've seen it over the last couple years they want to win up front they want to play physical they want to run the football and they want to play stingy on defense they started to add some more bodies to make them successful but you've got another piece in this draft to make that happen yeah and so what do you do to to maybe take another step okay you got to get off the field on third down you cannot stay on the field you were teams are converting at 45 almost 46 of the time that's 31st in the national football league you got to be able to get after the passer and you got to be able to defend the run game that's going to put you in passing situations on third down the other side of the ball on offense you got to be able to cash in you get in the red zone which Arthur Smith's offenses are noted for go back to the numbers in Tennessee they were very good in the red zone that's an area that they've got a they've got to increase so what do you do you find players that can affect those areas of the field getting off the field on third down rushing the passer might even be a combination deal defending the run game which would be the interior linebacker and then on the other side of the football making plays in the red zone and there's some guys out there they're going to help you in all those categories all right we got a lot going on here so now we'll take the draft and we'll take free agency and as we move forward here where's Atlanta look it feels like that this organization has learned a lot in the last two years Dave and the ability to live through that may pay off here for them yeah I think that the the idea of establishing racks talked about it we both talked about it the the culture in the idea what you're supposed to be that's the hard part about it when you come in new is you're trying to you hear a change of culture and re re-establish things or or you established things they've done that yeah so now they had to plug in guys that fit that mold I think they did a really good job of that right yeah absolutely there's you look at some of the guys obviously the Jesse Bates makes a splash right you got some other guys I think about like a Mike Hughes and a Jeff Okuta those two guys come in here as former first-rounders not just guys that were maybe six or seventh rounders or street free agents they were first-rounders that had their challenges early on in their career maybe the organization wasn't the right fit maybe they were banged up Jeff Okuta has been banged up throughout his career he's a number three overall pick just a few years ago that comes over to this organization and he's now probably trying to prove his worth he wants to come out and show everybody why he was such a dominant player at the college level you've now got these guys that are hungry coming into a team that is really kind of trying to turn over a new leaf is really exciting times for a land all right we're getting ready to take the turn now toward the draft at eight o'clock tonight and when we come back three positions on the field the Falcons might go in the next three days and the top three players at those positions and still ahead expert analysis and picks for tonight's first round coming up right with the eighth big doing man in the twenty twenty two NFL draft want to be a falcon the Atlanta falcon select oh yeah great London what are you bringing to the Atlanta falcons I think just playmaking ability guys he can go up and get the ball better than anybody else in this draft class his catch radius is off the charge oh my goodness Drake London caught Drake London touchdowns down the sideline London goes up and makes the catch my goodness this is the newest dirty bird Drake London rise up the Atlanta Falcons are redefining season ticket memberships get the best seats at the best value become a member and take your love for Falcons football to the next level stand out as a season ticket member wherever you go with free and exclusive members only gear get ultimate ticket flexibility to sell back or swap game tickets when you can't attend and best of all playoff priority and access to members only events all year long your seat is waiting rise up we're in flowery branch at the ticket master studios and our pre draft show continues presented tonight by truest all right uh three positions the that the falcons might look over the course of the weekend and maybe the best guys available at those positions uh not necessarily saying it's going to be early but at some point over the weekend and uh i'll tell you what wrack will let you start i know you're getting excited because just you get to dive into x's and o's but i'll start this thing off and i'll start with the defensive backs a position that's very much in play for Atlanta at number eight or wherever they draft in the first round and i'm going to start with my top three i think the widely regarded as the number one corner in the draft is christian gonzalez out of oregon went to the combine and absolutely blew it up with his speed ran a 4.38 showed a 41 and a half inch vertical and an 11 and a half inch broad jump what does that mean to somebody that doesn't know that means speed that means explosiveness that means top tier athleticism and then you look at his tape like we're seeing at oregon and he backs everything up with his play on the field he ends up picking off passes this year um just a phenomenal player all around he's gotten really good size to him as well maybe not the tallest corner in the draft but widely regarded as the best will probably come off the board first maybe devon witherspoon but we'll get to that one in a second my number two corner in this draft fellas is a guy by the name of joey porter junior out of penn state now he may not be number two on everybody else's board but let me tell you why he's number two on my board that doesn't really exist but anyway i love the fact that he is get in front of your face of wide receivers he is a press corner that wants to get contact he wants to reroute you and in the nfl that's what you need to do is disrupt timing some of these quarterbacks just want to get the ball out of their hands joey porter junior is going to get up in your face number two he has gotten length he sits just shy of six foot two what does length do it eats up space if you get beat off the line of scrimmage sometimes that length helps you catch up or down the field it helps you elevate and go up and make a play on a 50-50 ball he's got the length and number three like i mentioned his name is joey porter junior his dad was joey porter and he was what they call an enforcer when he played in the nfl i don't know this for certain but i would imagine his conversations with dad after a game were widely different than most everybody else playing in college football when he got in trouble when he did not play well i'm sure dad told him that in many different words that we cannot repeat on the air so he had probably had a much shorter leash and you know what we joke about it but there's something to be said about that a guy that comes from that pedigree i think he's really good finally devin witherspoon from illinois is my final corner and like i said he may end up being the first guy to come off the board but had a phenomenal season for the alina i actually called his game the first game of the year against wilman i said wow this kid can play right here first team ap all american was injured or nursing an injury at the combine so he did not run there he showed the speed at his private workout at a 4.4 240 so he's definitely going to be one of those top corners coming off the board all right i like the choice of dbs i'm going to go wide receiver this is not a heralded wide receiver class but i think it can be a productive one it's not going to start till probably around the teens in the first round and we're going to go with the guy that was the number one wide receiver in all the mocks when the when the whole process started so the one oh mock the number one receiver was jackson smith and jigba of ohio state and really he was listed number one despite being injured most of 22 only caught five balls was terrific in 21 for the buck eyes ryan day uh talks all about his route running i think he's a physical guy he's fast enough maybe not the fastest and uh he's going to be a player for somebody the injury thing does give you a little pause on smith and jigba the number two guy and i did this for harsh i mean quentin johnston of tcu was one of the major reasons sonny dykes his team played for the national championship last year he exploded he's a big guy he's got big speed and he makes a lot of big plays 60 catches half doesn't touchdown got slinging it to him wasn't bad either but look at him make it the high point stuff i mean i think quentin johnston really can help somebody at the next level uh so you go from fort worth texas and i'm going to the commonwealth of massachusetts nobody's moved faster and higher in the last two weeks than ze flowers of boston college it's almost like they they didn't know he caught 130 odd passes in the last two years he caught 78 balls for a dozen touchdowns a year ago from an offensive quite frankly could not run it across the street for uh for jeff haffley now haffley made news in the last 10 days when he talked about flowers loyalty because in today's college football ze flowers a year ago did not take the bag in the portal rack he stayed and played another year at chestnut hill because he wanted to be part of the program that's where i went with wide well ze flowers will snap some ankles when he gets the next good boy the dude can move and quentin johnson's favorite player randy moss i think you saw that in somebody take their i'm going to take best players available guys and this is an exclude willy anerson because i don't think will anerson is going to be available for the falcons if they pick in that eight spot so let's start with jaylen carter the big kid out of georgia and why not the good was dominating in the in the interior tremendous size and athleticism he's lightning quick in his first step you see it in all the tape nobody can nobody can block him singularly and he beats double teams readily a heavy handed violent hands 47 quarterback pressures in the last two years uh the guy is a dominant player on the interior let's shift gears ago the offensive side of the football how about bjohn robinson running back from texas this guy's got it all you hear about generational running backs i don't know about all i don't even know what that means but the dude can run okay he can start and stop he's got incredible vision he had the most broken tackles of any running back in college football a year ago and by the way he knows how to find the end zone he had almost 1600 yards rushing a year ago 18 touchdowns great vision for bjohn robinson and my last guy tyree wilson big kid out of texas tech now where do you play tyree six foot six 271 pounds is he a four three defense he's in he's a five technique in the three four is a stand-up linebacker yes he can do all of that he can do all of those kind of things and by the way he's got a seven two wingspan you want to try to throw the roll around this dude you've got a problem not only is he tracked the ball carrier down with it's a quarterback or running back he also has the ability to bat balls down on those bubble screens so a problem is what all these guys present he's d all the above right like i mean he named three positions and went yes we'll keep an eye on those guys good stuff here the countdown is on now to the first round where will and who will the falcons pick all the mocks are done and when we come back we give you the last word on what atlanta might do next how's it going how you doing you you ready to be a falcon yes sir all right i took this on curtsy don't with the 74th pick the atlanta falcon select desmond ridder i think what the falcons fans can expect from me as a player is a person who's going to come in and work every single day and give us absolute best gonna zip it down the field there is london who makes the catch shoots it in zone i mean wide open elimination first from the pocket to the right ridder going to throw it up trying to come back bernard catches it touchdown atlanta holy smokes that's a wrap man rookie season over with sorry next year let's go to work so what will the falcons do in the first round tonight of the national football league draft well you'll hear from david derrick in just a moment but let's rejoin steve weish of nfl network and get his thoughts on where atlanta goes in the first round all right i think the falcons do go corner uh at number eight even though you know they they brought in some veteran corners they've got some players there but you can never have enough corners and i think the pick if he's there will be devin witherspoon at the university of illinois he's a guy who can play in the slot he can play out wide but because they've got some pieces on the outside i think his natural position right there is in the slot he'll allow jesse bates to play free richie grant to do some things as kind of a rover in the middle and i think he just really fits no one ryan nielsen did down in new orleans and you saw a lot of three safety kind of three or one corner two safety looks in the middle of the field i think that's the type of player if it's not him i think it's christian gonzalez could be wrong edge rusher could be just too hard to pass up um because you know you've got some good guys but you get a dynamic talent off the edge that's huge but again i just look at how ryan nielsen built his defenses and they really really like a lot of ball hawks in that secondary well steve thanks very much so devin witherspoon of illinois and that's a guy we've already talked about and you're right is a playmaker for sure in the second year we also said at the top the doors is wide tonight for the falcons is maybe it's been a decade or so five of the first 113 picks belong to the falcons so i'm going to start the expert analyst segment here love it uh even though i clearly do not qualify as such um i'm going to tell you i think atlanta trades back okay okay so i'm not going by the rules like you guys did earlier in the show okay very quickly i think atlanta can go back a couple spots and get what they want and what they want is bijan robinson okay because i think robinson is the guy that fits the bill here um you guys mentioned it earlier arch you said it beautifully i mean he can catch it he can run it he's the doke walker award winner uh it's the start stop ability it's the speed um i think the vision is really good and i'm with you i don't know what generational running back is but this guy was the best running back in college football a year ago i think he'd look really good with a bird on the side of his helmet well i tell you i called a couple of his games over the last couple of years and it's one of those situations arch i know you see the same thing when you watch him he might come off the field because he's getting a drink of water or he just catches breath but you just sense a different feel when he trucks back on the field you just like okay texas is going to be all right here comes bijan yeah that's not what the opponent saying they're saying uh-oh uh-oh but he i can tell you haven't met him at big 12 media day's quality human being as well a guy that cares about the community which is in the dna of an atlanta fountain all right uh next rag all right let's go uh we talked about edge rusher was a need um how about a guy that's could be an edge rusher he could be a linebacker he could be a cover player i'm going to go with nolyn smith out of the university of georgia and the reason is this guy gives you so much versatility first of all he's a winner back-to-back national championships with georgia but even more interesting the fact that he had a torn pectoral muscle this year so he basically had to embrace being a leader and he didn't just embrace it like he excelled he acted like another coach on the field when he couldn't play but when he was on the field he was making a whole lot of plays like this and then he gets healthy goes to the combine this year runs up 4.39 40 at 6 2 and nearly 240 pounds so what do you do you put him on the edge you tell him to to run around an offensive tackle if you want you could say lock up on that tight end if you want you could say lock up on that slot receiver at 4.39 in the 40 this guy brings you so much versatility and he would be happy to stay at home with atlanta hasan reddick uh michael parson's maybe sign us up for that kind of like that okay yeah i think i agree with you rach there's no question he's got that kind of versatility savannah zone by the way just down the road and savannah is where he hails from all right i was scribbling stuff down i was raking stuff out i was listening you talk and all this kind of christian gonzalez you completely sold christian gonzalez is this a big time player now and i agree with rach at origan 61 197 ran 438 at the combine 41 and a half inch vert and you're gonna see tape from both colorado and you're gonna see origan saying what the heck they got the wrong they got the wrong tape and no he played at both places 18 starts at colorado followed his defensive back coach dimitri martin to origan and he started origan for interceptions as rach said earlier he's a guy that's a ball hawk he can track the football he can mirror receivers you know he reminds me of guys aj terrell it wouldn't be it wouldn't be bad to have another guy like that on the other side love this guy christian gonzalez is my selection i tell you what those are all good uh we'll see what atlanta does tonight it's going to be a very interesting weekend for the falcons as we said five picks in the first 113 it's been terrific to be with dav archer and derrick rackley uh and thanks to our wonderful crew here at atlanta falcons dot com don't forget atlanta falcons dot com we'll have all the coverage tonight and all weekend long now coming up in a couple minutes arch and i jump to radio and join mike conti for full first round coverage of the draft tonight on atlanta's v103 fm which is also available through the odyssey app thanks for watching the pre draft show presented by truest from the ticketmaster studios in flowery branch good night hello in the 2021 nfl draft he is the highest in history he's an absolute freak show the alana falcons select kyle pitts it's all kyle pitts wide open holy smoke caught touchdown first career scoring catch for kyle pitts and nobody followed him how do you not follow him