Atlanta Falcons Draft Day Trade Elicits Rare Praise

The Athletic's Mike Sando is one of the few national analysts who paid closer attention to the Atlanta Falcons trade that netted them James Pearce Jr. and Xavier Watts.

The Atlanta Falcons addressed their chronically poor pass rush in a big way in the 2025 NFL Draft. | Daniel Flick - Atlanta Falcons on SI

Praise from national pundits for the Atlanta Falcons' draft strategy of trading back into the first round to select edge rusher James Pearce Jr. has been virtually non-existent. Finding a pundit willing to acknowledge that the Falcons got a first and a third-round pick in the deal has been equally scarce.

That’s what makes The Athletic’s Mike Sando a unicorn of sorts.

In a recent column on his favorite offseason moves from each team, Sando decided to see the forest and the trees. 

"The Falcons’ double-barreled approach to addressing their pass-rush issues cost them a 2026 first-round pick, which seemed desperate,” wrote Sando, echoing the knee-jerk reaction of national media. “But unlike last offseason, when the Falcons committed $90 million guaranteed to Kirk Cousins before using a first-round pick for another QB, Michael Penix Jr., the move to draft pass rushers Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. was not an either-or proposition. 

“Both first-round picks can play at the same time. Getting a third-round pick back from the Rams in the trade-up for Pearce also enabled the selection of safety Xavier Watts, a likely starter."

The points about Walker and Pearce will resonate. If both play up to expectations, this makes everyone else on the defense immediately better. 

While unsure what Jimmy Lake attempted to do a season ago, deploying two pass rushers to actually get upfield and not dropping into coverage is not a novel approach. Each will look to factor against the run, as each can knife into the backfield to make a stop. 

Meanwhile. Not enough people are discussing Xavier Watts and the fact that Atlanta actually grabbed a starter in the trade with the Rams. The Falcons didn’t forfeit a first-round pick in the trade, they used it in 2025 to address a chronic deficiency in their team. Would trading a first and a second to move up from 46 to 26 seem desperate? Probably.

But the Falcons swapped first-rounders at the cost of moving back from 46 to 101 to take a player in Watts they likely would have been happy to get at 46. 

That nuance has been lost on pundit after pundit since the draft. However, kudos to Sando for paying attention.

At the end of the day, the chatter after the draft will be replaced by the results on the field. If James Pearce Jr. turns out to be the edge rusher the Falcons thought he was heading into the draft, even the most willfully ignorant of pundits will praise the bold move to get him in 2025 instead of holding onto the pick for 2026.