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Marc Raimondi
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Jalon Walker was getting a journey to Charlotte, North Carolina, late Thursday evening from his dwelling in Salisbury, N.C. He was scheduled to fly to the Atlanta Falcons‘ facility the following morning on the workforce’s non-public jet.
Little did he know, he would have firm.
The Falcons drafted Walker out of Georgia with the No. 15 choose in Thursday’s NFL draft. That was scheduled to be Atlanta’s solely first-round choose, however common supervisor Terry Fontenot wasn’t finished. The aggressive GM traded again into the primary spherical, buying the Los Angeles Rams’ No. 26 choose with which the Falcons chosen edge rusher James Pearce Jr. out of Tennessee.
Walker appeared down at his cellphone whereas he was on his solution to Charlotte and noticed the information.
“I am like, ‘What?!'” Walker mentioned. “James Pearce is a Falcon?”
He wasn’t the one one who was stunned. Swiftly, the pass-rush-starved Falcons had drafted two of the SEC’s finest gamers at attending to the quarterback. It got here at a hefty value, although. Atlanta needed to ship its first-round choose in 2026 to the Rams, plus a second-rounder and seventh-rounder on this draft, to maneuver as much as seize Pearce. The Falcons additionally obtained a 2025 third-round choose within the swap.
Just some weeks after Falcons proprietor Arthur Clean mentioned he had a “very clear” dialog with Fontenot and coach Raheem Morris about how dissatisfied he was with final season’s 8-9 report, the entrance workplace displayed a win-now mentality. If the Falcons prolong their streak of lacking the playoffs to eight years, the workforce’s 2026 draft picks could be made by a unique regime. However for now, confidence was flying excessive.
Then once more, Fontenot does not want encouragement to be aggressive. This was the fourth consecutive time the Falcons have traded up below Fontenot, who was employed in 2021. They’ve additionally made a number of splashy first-round choices which have drawn criticism. This one — sacrificing a first-rounder subsequent 12 months for Pearce — could be added to that checklist.
Whereas the fee was excessive, Fontenot and Morris had been all smiles. The Falcons obtained two gamers they consider can enhance a protection that registered simply 31 sacks final season, higher than solely the New England Patriots‘ 28. The Falcons already consider they’ll have top-of-the-line offenses within the NFL, led by rising second-year quarterback Michael Penix Jr., receiver Drake London and operating again Bijan Robinson.
“Man, simply telling you, I slept good final evening,” Fontenot mentioned with fun Friday.
NEW FALCONS DEFENSIVE coordinator Jeff Ulbrich texted Fontenot at round 2 a.m. Friday morning. He could not include his happiness about how Atlanta ended up with Pearce after drafting Walker.
“I’m simply excited and appreciative for him placing plenty of belief in us as a defensive employees, and that we’ll make the most of [Pearce] in the best method,” Ulbrich mentioned.
Pearce was one of many guys the Falcons needed most. In actual fact, Fontenot mentioned they’d have been greater than comfy taking Pearce at No. 15. However then, Walker surprisingly dropped to that spot after some analysts projected him as one of many first defenders taken within the draft. Walker, Ulbrich mentioned, was “simply too laborious to cross up.”
As soon as the Falcons chosen Walker, Fontenot instantly obtained again on the cellphone to attempt to commerce again into the primary spherical — for Pearce particularly. Had Pearce been snatched up, Fontenot mentioned, Atlanta wouldn’t have made the transfer it did and would have probably stood pat. That is how a lot the Falcons favored Pearce.
Walker drew raves for his versatility at Georgia, excelling as an off-ball linebacker, in addition to an edge rusher. He even took 50 snaps final season as a nickel nook on one of many nation’s finest defenses.
Pearce has unbelievable velocity, operating a 4.47-second 40-yard sprint on the mix, and had 17.5 sacks mixed the previous two seasons. Ulbrich mentioned when it got here to cross rushers on this class, “You possibly can have made a case that he was the perfect one from a pure edge component.”
The Falcons had finished their due diligence on Pearce, who refuted criticism questioning his love for the sport.
Fontenot and Morris met with Pearce and his mom final Wednesday, someday earlier than the draft’s first spherical, in Pearce’s hometown of Charlotte.
“I might say it helped,” Morris mentioned.
It wasn’t the one factor that sealed the deal, although. The Falcons had been assured of their vetting course of even earlier than the assembly and did not put a ton of credence into the rumors. Pearce mentioned Friday he does love the sport and is coming in with a little bit of a chip on his shoulder resulting from a few of these predraft rumblings.
Fontenot used the phrase “conviction” a number of occasions in discussing the choice to commerce again into the primary spherical to seize Pearce. The Falcons actually favored the participant. And it did not harm that the workforce has struggled within the cross rush for years and has not had a double-digit sack chief since 2017. The Falcons had been thirty first in stress charge (28.1%) in 2024.
“Make no mistake about it, it is rather laborious to search out cross rushers,” Morris mentioned.
And now Atlanta has two new ones, each first-round picks. The Falcons are set with their offense, and the protection may need taken a significant step up with the additions of Walker and Pearce, in addition to third-round choose Xavier Watts, a security, and fourth-round choose Billy Bowman Jr., who will play nickel nook.
“It was simply an incredible collaboration,” mentioned Ulbrich, the previous interim head coach and defensive coordinator of the New York Jets. “It is the perfect I’ve ever been round.”
FONTENOT SAID LAST week in his predraft information convention that the Falcons have a chart that tracks the tendencies of different common managers, whether or not they wish to commerce up or down within the draft or just stand pat. When requested the place he could be on that chart, Fontenot laughed and mentioned: “I am 75% commerce up. I am extra aggressive.”
Certainly, he’s. The Falcons have made outside-the-box strikes a number of occasions in his tenure, together with final season after they drafted Penix at No. 8 simply weeks after signing veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins to a $100 million assured contract.
Like this 12 months, the Falcons had been one of many predominant headlines — and one of many groups most criticized — popping out of final 12 months’s first spherical. The choice of Penix has aged nicely, although. Cousins broke down in the midst of final season, and Atlanta believes Penix shall be its franchise quarterback.
Final 12 months, the Falcons reasoned that they needed Penix partly as a result of they did not consider they’d be in place to draft a doubtlessly elite quarterback this 12 months. They usually’re saying the identical factor now about Pearce, that they do not consider that they’d be capable to get a cross rusher of his means even when they’d a first-round choose in 2026.
The Falcons weren’t in a position to make as many strikes as they needed in free company due to wage cap constraints. They had been in a position to bolster their entrance seven with veterans in edge rusher Leonard Floyd (one 12 months, $10 million contract) and defensive lineman Morgan Fox (two years, $5.5 million) for a comparatively small sum of money.
“Make no mistake about it, it is rather laborious to search out cross rushers.”
Raheem Morris
Now, with what they assume shall be a high-powered offense, they’re hoping Ulbrich has sufficient items on protection to make the Falcons the favourite in a wide-open NFC South.
“I really feel like I consider in what the pinnacle guys had been doing, and so they knew what they had been doing,” mentioned Pearce, who flew right down to Atlanta with Walker on Friday morning. “They introduced each of us in right here, so that they obtained a plan and it is as much as me and Jalon to comply with it.”
Fontenot obtained one other textual content Friday morning. It was from Jerry Grey, the Falcons’ assistant head coach and a sage-like determine within the group with 30 years of teaching expertise. It was the kind of message that shall be revisited after the rookie seasons for Walker and Pearce.
“Hey, congratulations on final evening — nice strikes,” Grey wrote to Fontenot. “Very enthusiastic about what we’re including to this workforce. Nice evening.
“However within the well-known phrases of Janet Jackson, she famously sang, ‘What have you ever finished for me recently?'”
Extra reporting by Jeremy Fowler.
