Falcons still keeping tabs on the veteran safety market

If you feel like you've been hearing about Atlanta's interest in a veteran safety for months...well, you have. Bear with us, though, because you're about to hear about it again.

They believe they can get a veteran safety late (before camp) if they don't like what they have. https://t.co/2mpgEimOxb

— D. Orlando Ledbetter (@DOrlandoAJC) March 27, 2016

With a surprisingly stagnant market for players like Reggie Nelson, Roman Harper, and Walter Thurmond, there may well be something to this, though it's obviously a risk to let solid veterans sit out on the open market while you chase a draft pick you may or may not actually end up making. The Falcons have been solidly linked to Florida safety Keanu Neal in this class and will certainly have interest in other top prospects at the position, but just who they'll get is uncertain until late April. My money, for what it's worth, is definitely on Neal.

If the Falcons manage to land one of the safeties they covet in the first two rounds, they won't need a free agent, not with Ricardo Allen, Robenson Therezie, Kemal Ishmael, Charles Godfrey, and Damian Parms under contract. They just need that clear-cut second starter for 2016, and it's fairly obvious at this point that they don't see that man on the roster, which makes biding their time a bit of a dicey proposition. When your alternative is someone like Harper, though, I guess that's not the end of the world.