The Falcons’ new leadership, with an eye toward the draft, is preparing for its first trip to the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.
Things will get underway Tuesday and run through March 3 at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Executives from most teams are set to speak Tuesday or Wednesday. The players will hit the field Thursday.
Falcons general manager Ian Cunningham started his career with the Ravens and the Eagles before helping general manager Ryan Poles turn around the Bears. He’s going to lean on those experiences as he prepares for his first draft with the Falcons.
“Yeah, kind of what we just talked about there (at Baltimore and Philadelphia): smart, tough, physical,” Cunningham said. “We’re going to build through the trenches.”
He was on the Ravens staff when they won the Super Bowl after the 2012 regular season and with the Eagles when they won the Super Bowl after the 2017 regular season.
“If you look at all those teams, that’s the philosophy,” Cunningham said. “‘Draft, develop and retain,’ that’s going to be our philosophy here, too. You can’t have enough draft picks. We did that in Baltimore. You want to retain your own. So, that’s what we’re going to do. Those are common themes that they both had, so we’ll bring that here as well.”
The Falcons, who do not have a first-round pick this year, will enter the scouting combine with needs at wide receiver, cornerback and defensive tackle.
“I would rank that wide receiver, cornerback and (defensive) tackle in terms of the depth,” NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah said Thursday. “But it’s not in bad shape at defensive tackle. It’s just much, much deeper at the other two positions.”
The Falcons’ wide receiver group behind Drake London fell apart last season. Darnell Mooney couldn’t follow his strong 2024 season after suffering a broken collarbone on the first day of training camp. Ray-Ray McCloud, after a career season in 2024, was released midseason.
Mooney’s receptions dropped from 64 to 32, yards from 992 to 443 and touchdowns from five to one. Finding a wide receiver to play opposite London is one of the offseason personnel projects.
“Wide receiver is really, really good,” Jeremiah said. “It’s comparable to the last several years. I think I ended up counting it up the other day. I think I had 19 guys with grades that would put them in the top three-round range. So, that’s a really good group of wide receivers.”
USC’s Makai Lemon (seventh), Ohio State’s Carnell Tate (ninth) and Arizona State’s Jordyn Tyson (15th) are the top wide receivers on Jeremiah’s list of the top 50 players in the draft.
Clemson’s Antonio Williams and Georgia’s Zachariah Branch could be available when the Falcons pick in the second round. Williams is a two-time All-ACC selection. Branch is the 46th ranked player by Jeremiah. The Falcons hold the 48th overall pick.
The Falcons finished last season with C.J. Henderson as the starting right cornerback after Mike Hughes was injured.
“We got a nice mix of outside guys and one of the really, really good groups of slot corners that I’ve seen in the last few years,” Jeremiah said. “So, good, not quite as deep as we’ve seen in some other years, but really solid there with again, a really nice mix of slot corners.”
The are some familiar names in the cornerback group.
“You’ve got (Brandon) Cisse from South Carolina, who’s going to run blazing fast and is a really talented player,” Jeremiah said. “But the nickels to me, like Avieon Terrell from Clemson … who I think is going to play in there, (Jalon) Kilgore from South Carolina, D’Angelo Ponds from Indiana, all those guys are all like second (rounders). Maybe one of those guys drifts into the third. I’d put Keith Abney from Arizona State just behind them.”
A lot has been made about the Falcons doing a better job of stopping the run. Also, defensive tackle David Onyemata is set to become an unrestricted free agent.
“It’s not as deep as the edge rusher group in this draft,” Jeremiah said. “But there’s some real intriguing guys with some traits. A lot 320-plus pound guys. Once you get into that (group) outside the first round and maybe into that late second to the fourth, I think is a nice little sweet spot there.”
The Falcons gave up 126.2 yards rushing per game, which ranked 24th in the NFL.
“You got some real big guys in there,” Jeremiah said. “As teams are playing with more shell coverage, just about everybody is, and they want to stop the run with fewer bodies. I think the presence of these 300-plus pound DTs, while they might not be big-time upside pass-rush players, I think they’re starting to have a little more value again.”
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