Ian Cunningham is heading into his first draft as the Falcons’ General Manager with a clear problem and an even clearer priority: he needs more picks.
Right now, Atlanta holds just five selections. No first-rounder. No early-stage splash. That top pick disappeared in last year’s aggressive move back into the first round to grab edge rusher James Pearce, a gamble the franchise believes will anchor its pass rush for years. The price for that conviction is being felt now.
It explains why the Falcons tore into free agency with such intent. With limited draft capital, they had to do their heavy lifting on the open market, plugging holes with veterans rather than banking on a deep rookie class. But Cunningham isn’t content to simply accept the numbers on the board.
He wants more swings.
“For us, it’s one of those things where we have to go into this thinking we only have five picks. That’s worst case,” Cunningham said, via the team’s website. “If we come out of it with just five picks, we come out of it with just five picks. We are already looking at different ways to potentially manufacture some more. But if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”
That’s the tension of this draft for Atlanta. The front office is operating on two tracks: plan as if those five picks are all they’ll get, scheme as if that number can still grow.
So how do they change the math?
Unless Cunningham decides to dip back into future assets and kick the problem further down the road, the options are blunt. Trade down from current slots and slide back for volume, or put existing roster pieces on the table and see what the market offers. Neither route is painless. Both would say plenty about how this regime values its current core.
For a first-time GM, it’s a revealing early test. Does he double down on the boldness that brought Pearce to Atlanta, or does he play the long game and stretch this thin draft hand into something more flexible?
The clock is ticking toward draft night, and so is the pressure to find those extra swings.
