With 10 picks in this year’s draft, the Falcons are one of eight teams with double-digit picks, but how valuable are those picks? As you’d expect, they’re quite valuable, especially since many of them come at the beginning of each round. Bill Barnwell over at Grantland put together a ranking of the values of each team’s draft collateral, and the Falcons are near the top.
Using an approximate value figure for each draft pick in every round, Barnwell determined the total value of each team’s potential haul, which can also be considered a team’s ability to be mobile in the draft. With more to work with, as Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff has shown in the past, targeted players can be more easily obtained.
Barnwell ranks the Falcons’ draft picks at No. 5 (55.4 points value) out of 32 teams, one of “the beasts” of the draft. He notes the Falcons’ three untradeable compensatory picks as well as Dimitroff’s history of trading in the draft. The Falcons have pulled off at least one trade in each of Dimitroff’s prior six drafts and the general manager said last week that he and his staff will not quietly watch the draft unfold.
While many point to Dimitroff’s bold move to jump to the top of the draft to select Julio Jones in 2011, he hasn’t dismissed the possibility to move back instead of up and mentioned it again during last week’s press conference. A move back would give the Falcons even more picks and could set up a move forward in other rounds later in the draft.
Barnwell rates the Jags, Texans and Rams ahead of the Falcons in draft value with Cleveland taking the top spot.