Welcome Falcons' First 5th Round Pick, FB Bradie Ewing

Well, not the fan favorite pick, for sure. But let me try and justify it a little. First, Ovie was making a ton of money. As much as we love him, we need the cap room. We may not be done in free agency. Someone mentioned Yeremiah Bell earlier. If Nolan likes his DBs, we might pursue Bell.

Second, Mike Cox counts against the cap, too, so he may be gone as well. We have to spend a certain amount of money on our picks, if I'm not mistaken, or at least we have to pay our draft picks some amount of money that might be less than what Cox is making. Perhaps the FO wanted to secure a FB before he was picked by someone else. Yeah, it may be earlier than we'd like, but our second 5th round pick is so close, maybe we thought that we could still nab that person (As of this writing, we're not there yet).

At 6'0" 239, Ewing has pretty good size. He could actually replace Cox and we could keep Ovie. We're not above the cap, if I'm not mistaken, because of Blalock's contract restructuring recently.

Ewing could learn under Ovie for a year, or maybe he'll do nothing. Ewing had some success catching the ball at Wisconsin, and I just learned that Ovie is in the final year of his contract this year. Ewing could come in, play special teams (he did that at Wisconsin as well, I believe) and learn under Ovie and then we just won't renew Ovie's contract. It could very well happen.

It wasn't a sexy pick, but I believe it had good value. Fullbacks aren't used much anymore but they are still drafted. Ewing was not the first FB to go in this draft.

How do you feel about the pick? (Plus, he blocked for that guy Montee Ball, who is pretty good, last I checked)