Jerious Norwood is almost certainly gone. Jason Snelling could leave if someone throws a fat contract at him.
I know i'm dabbling in the hypothetical here, but if it happens, the Falcons will only have two running backs. There will be a handful of (mostly crappy) veterans out there, but there's no need to splurge on a vet when there's quality rookie options out there. Fortunately, there are.
After the jump, three options I'd like to see the Falcons consider.
Caleb King
No, I'm not picking him just to appease our in-house Caleb.
King is kind of an interesting story. A highly touted high school prospect, he arrived at Georgia and promptly fizzled out, suffering through a host of off-the-field incidents and never gaining a foothold as a starter. To be fair, in his limited backup duty King was successful, but those incidents are troubling.
On the field, King's a bruiser, carrying 215 pounds on a roughly 5'11 frame and running in the range of a 4.6 40-yard dash. The physical talent is enough that he could fill the Big Snell memorial role, should our favorite epileptic running back head elsewhere.
The biggest drawback is that King plans to enter the supplemental draft. He's probably not worth rolling a pick on, but if he makes it through, he's an intriguing undrafted free agent.
John Clay
Ironically nicknamed Gumby, Clay is not the shiftiest back in the world. But he's an extremely productive one.
The Falcons could use a back like Clay, who is a bruiser like King but put up much better numbers in college. Three year starter, thousands of yards on the ground, close to 30 touchdowns...that's a good college career.
Out of the three options, Clay's probably my favorite one, especially if the Falcons do lose Snelling. I don't know enough about his hands to tell you he can seamlessly fit into Snell's role, but he ought to do a fair impression of a battering ram.
Noel Devine
Devine is very unlike the other two backs on this list. He's smaller, fast and...well, let Jason Kirk tell you about it. I don't think I can improve on that.