As quickly as six-time All-Professional Myles Garrett made his commerce request from the Cleveland Browns public on Monday, the NFL world’s gears began turning. What wouldn’t it take to grab the reigning Defensive Participant of the 12 months away from his dwelling for eight years? Who would have the center, and the belongings, to make the transfer? The Athletic’s Zac Jackson and the remainder of the NFL employees discovered ten potential suitors and what it’d take to garner the six-time Professional-Bowler’s companies.
One of many suitors simply so occurs to be the Atlanta Falcons, and Athletic beat author Josh Kendall outlined a surprisingly real looking commerce proposal for Atlanta and their present roster building.
Browns get: 2025 first-round decide (No. 15) and 2026 first-round decide
Falcons get: Garrett
Making this transfer could be dangerous for the Falcons, but when an elite edge rusher is accessible, they need to a minimum of get all of the decision-makers in a room and have the dialogue. The Falcons are famously dangerous at speeding the passer. They had been thirty first within the NFL in sacks this season (31) and final within the league over the previous 5 (141) and 10 seasons (298).
Nonetheless, they will’t overpay. The Falcons’ roster has too many depth holes to fill to present away a number of draft picks. Atlanta may afford to ship out its 2025 and 2026 first-rounders, although, as a result of its top-end offensive expertise is in place and Garrett’s presence would elevate the extent of each defensive participant on the roster. Something past that’s an excessive amount of as a result of this workforce isn’t one participant away from being a contender, even when that participant is Garrett.
Every little thing outlined by Kendall checks out: The Falcons have one of many extra thrilling offenses in place, particularly with the younger core of ability place expertise to construct round. Bijan Robinson, Drake London, Darnell Mooney, and Tyler Allgeier are all underneath 28 and have persistently contributed to Atlanta as they’ve rebuilt their offense post-Matt Ryan, and Michael Penix is now on the helm of the offense.
Garrett’s presence on a protection alone raises the ground and the ceiling, and if any protection wants a better flooring, it’s the Falcons, particularly within the pass-rush division. Since Professional-Soccer-Reference began gathering pressures as a statistic (2018), Atlanta is useless final with 874. In that span, they’re additionally fifth-worst in defensive yards per play allowed and EPA/play allowed and second-worst in defensive success price.
Even with all of this, there’s one downside, and Kendall addresses this: The Falcons aren’t Tremendous Bowl contenders as quickly as Garrett enters the power. The expertise on the defensive facet of the ball isn’t prepared for any playoff run, not to mention a deep one.
That doesn’t imply the Falcons can’t purchase some defensive expertise, even with the Kirk Cousins debacle going awry. In line with OverTheCap.com, Atlanta has probably the most most restructuring potential of any workforce, with over $146 million that could possibly be manufactured.
So, is the Garrett dream fully out of the image? Completely not. Fontenot has confirmed that he’s keen to be aggressive in his strategy to roster building. Even when they didn’t pan out, the aggressiveness of Justin Simmons and Matthew Judon strikes made it identified that Terry was keen to shirk complacency and do what wanted to be carried out to area a aggressive workforce.
With Garrett’s no-trade clause in impact, Fontenot should show that he can do greater than area a aggressive workforce (which is debatable in its personal proper), he has to show that he can area a Tremendous Bowl contender.
