With the fourth pick in the NFL Draft, the Atlanta Falcons select, well, um, the wrong person.
Did they really huddle all that time in their war room Thursday night in Flowery Branch, Georgia, to go with a tight end over a quarterback, with all of those quarterbacks right there, including the quarterback for them?
Yep.
When NFL commissioner Roger Goodell opened the envelope in Cleveland for The Most Boneheaded Move Of The First Round, he mentioned “Atlanta Falcons” and “Kyle Pitts” in the same sentence.
See, that’s why they can’t have nice things in north Georgia, such as a shiny Vince Lombardi Trophy.
There’s a reason the 12 highest-average salaries of NFL players for 2021 belong to quarterbacks, ranging from Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs at $45 million to Carson Wentz of the Indianapolis Colts at $32 million to Jimmy Garoppolo of the San Francisco 49ers at $27.5 millions.
Tight ends are nowhere in the top 20.
Along those lines, the last tight end crowned the Most Valuable Player of a Super Bowl was nobody.
Are you listening, Falcons?
Obviously not, and it’s too late.
The Falcons showed in the first round why they won’t rise anytime soon from 19th out of the NFL’s 32 franchises in the Forbes’ 2020 team evaluations at $2.875 billion. They didn’t take a giant leap from their three consecutive losing seasons and “28-3” (their 2017 Super Bowl meltdown against the New England Patriots), because they didn’t get the right person.
The right person for the Falcons during this year’s NFL Draft was Ohio State’s Justin Fields, or just about anybody else who will spend more of their career in the league throwing a football instead of catching one.
Quarterbacks get you to Super Bowls.
Quarterbacks win you Super Bowls.
No question, this non-quarterback drafted by the Falcons is special. Pitts was an athletic freak at the University of Florida. His massive wing span contributed to his ability to catch everything in his universe, while plowing over defenders at 6-foot-6 and 246 pounds.
Tight ends are complementary players, though. Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates played out of their minds along the way to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and they never came close to reaching a Super Bowl.
Yes, the Falcons have future Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Matt Ryan, and new Falcons head coach Arthur Smith keeps suggesting Ryan has several productive years left. The Falcons showed their loyalty to Ryan in March, when they restructured his contract for the fourth time since he signed his original five-year deal worth $150 million in May 2018.
Even so, if you’re the Falcons, why not have Ryan and Fields, especially since Ryan is weeks shy of 36? It’s not as if the Falcons would have reinvented the goalpost. When the 49ers still had Joe Montana, they got Steve Young, and when the Green Bay Packers still had Brett Favre, they got Aaron Rodgers.
Montana, Young and Favre already are enshrined in Canton, and Rodgers is heading that way.
It’s too early to prepare a bust for Fields.
Then again, maybe not.
The guy is spectacular.
During each of the past two years, Fields took Ohio State to undefeated regular seasons and the College Football Playoffs (CFP), including the 2021 national championship game. While he was turning the Buckeyes into a powerhouse, the Florida Gators were a combined 19-6 (as in ho-hum) under The Great Kyle Pitts, with no CFP trips and a 1-1 record in New Year’s Day bowl games.
Now Fields just grew the already massive fan base of the Chicago Bears after the Falcons blew it, because the Bears swooped in to make him the 11th overall pick in the draft. Unlike the Falcons, the Bears knew they needed this quarterback beyond everything else. They haven’t had a decent one since Jim McMahon and those Super Bowl shuffling Bears of the mid-1980s.
As a pending NFL rookie, Fields is better than McMahon.
When Fields finished his college career that began as a backup at the University of Georgia, he had 67 touchdown passes and just 9 interceptions for a career quarterback rating of 178.8, which is pretty great. He also ran the 40-yard dash for NFL scouts in 4.4, which is pretty scary.
That ranked only behind Robert Griffin III (4.3) for the fastest time ever for a quarterback during an NFL Combine or a Pro Day workout,
Fields sounds like Michael Vick, the quarterback who dominated the hearts of the Dirty Bird Nation earlier this century. The difference is, there aren’t reports of Fields and dog-fighting issues. Such charisma without drama would have been huge for Fields with the Falcons, along with this: He’s from Kennesaw, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, where the local NFL team needs something or somebody to bring more life (and fannies) into the stands of its $1.5 billion stadium.
Due to the pandemic, the Falcons haven’t kicked off before a regular home crowd since 2019, but that’s not saying much.
No-shows have dominated Mercedes-Benz Stadium throughout its previous four years of existence, and it doesn’t matter owner Arthur Blank has featured some of the lowest concession prices around the NFL, exemplified by his $2 hotdogs.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Falcons said their average home attendance in 2018 was 72,898 for eight regular-season games, but they “actually drew 9,000 fewer per game to the stadium.” Home crowds remained weak for the Falcons in 2019.
So, they’ve gone to gimmicks.
Since a slew of Atlanta sports fans have avoided the Falcons for joining other sports franchises in trying to force customers to buy PSLs — personal seat licenses, which require fans to pay hundreds of dollars, just for the opportunity to purchase a season ticket — the Falcons have turned 750 seats at Mercedes-Benz Stadium into what they call a Super Fan section.
No PSLs required.
Then there is that out-of-town thing.
Certain fans who buy club seats at Mercedes-Benz Stadium will receive free tickets to Falcons road games.
Yeah, well. The following would have been so much easier for the Falcons: Just draft that quarterback instead of that tight end.
