The Rams have traded the No. 31 pick to the Falcons. Los Angeles will get picks No. 45 and No. 79, while Atlanta will receive No. 31 and No. 203.
Atlanta will select Washington offensive tackle Kaleb McGary. For the second time in the first round, the Falcons will use a first-round pick on a position that they’d already fortified in free agency. Atlanta signed guards Jamon Brown and James Carpenter but used their initial first-round pick on fellow interior lineman Chris Lindstrom. After extending right tackle Ty Sambrailo, the Falcons will now add competition in McGary.
Great move for the Rams.
Love the Falcons beefing up the line!
Got to respect the falcons trying to make that offense better and be able to perform like it should. But when the defense is as terrible as it is, you almost wish they would spend the entire draft on defense.
yeah the o-line just got way better tho. A lot of injured defensive players coming back plus they still have like 7 picks left. Hopefully can get some good defensive tackles with those picks still
I will have to disagree on the defensive take. Don’t forget how many good players were hurt on that side of the ball last year. Good, young players that probably were going to get better (Allen, Jones, Neal). It was just one year ago they were being talked about as the next Seahawks defense. Very few teams can lose their best LB and two safeties and still look good. It gutted our ability to cover, especially on third down packages(31st in the league as opposed to 18th the year before). It also hurt our ability to pressure because we had to be conservative in blitzing due to three starters being out that weighed heavily in coverage.
Sure, we could use a piece or two on defense, but the O-Line was horrendous last year. Not only did it effect the overall numbers, but I noticed Ryan getting happy feet in the middle third of the season. You have seen it before, where a QB gets hit so often and so quickly, that they start rushing everything. It happens to the best of them and unless they are cagey vets, it usually cripples a career. He seemed to get a bit better the last few weeks and I am hoping he can erase the beating he took from memory and not rush so much this year.
I always complain they never take o-line seriously in draft…man they went exact opposite this year
I see this as a reach, but if the Falcons really liked him then so be it. Their talent evaluations the last few years have been far better than the previous twenty years or so. One thing is for certain, their OL has only really had one good year out of the last ten or so, and using retreads and late round picks to try to get better is just not working.
One ting that bugs me is the media claiming McGary has below average arm length for a tackle. I had heard that previously last night on OT’s so I went back and looked. Three of the four picked in the first round had below average arm lengths. I then went back to previous drafts and it was the same. Nearly every OT picked has or ‘below average arm length’, including some of the best OT’s in the league.. My guess is a couple of guys years back had really long arms and did well so they set up this ridiculous number that pretty much no one can measure up to. Seriously, they need to adjust the number if the majority of the OT’s taken are below the ‘average’.