NFL Power Rankings: Falcons 'A Year Away?'
The NFL Draft is over and for the most part, free agents have picked their new homes for 2022. It's the time of the NFL offseason to speculate wildly on things like schedule predictions and team power rankings.
Pro Football Focus recently ranked every team and categorized them into tiers, and the Atlanta Falcons were mentioned near the bottom in the "rebuilding" tier.
30. ATLANTA FALCONS
Atlanta jumped into the bidding war for Deshaun Watson only to come up short and effectively end relations with Matt Ryan as their starter. Trading him away creates a devastating blow to the salary cap in terms of dead money, but it represents the start of a franchise reboot.
Marcus Mariota is a fine stopgap at quarterback and the team had a very good draft, but we may be a year away from these moves paying real dividends.
The Falcons did indeed make some questionable moves, including possibly alienating the long-time face of the franchise, Matt Ryan, while courting a new quarterback in Deshaun Watson.
When the Watson deal fell through, it seemed the damage was done, and Atlanta may have panicked in dealing Ryan to Indianapolis and bringing in Marcus Mariota.
Fans can hope the better-than-average draft Atlanta pulled off in 2022 will pay dividends early.
If that's the case, this rebuild/retooling of the roster might not last as long as originally thought, and the Falcons might just move up in the rankings by next season.
You can follow Timm Hamm on Twitter at @IndyCarTim
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