Shocking news: The Falcons are amenable to trading up in the NFL Draft

In a twist that no one saw coming, the Atlanta Falcons indicated earlier this week that they would consider trading up in the first round.

This has happened in only four of the ten drafts Thomas Dimitroff has been involved in, so of course we here at The Falcoholic were so shocked that we collectively dropped our coffee cups in slow motion. The thought of Atlanta actually moving up to get a player it wants, surrendering assets in the process, is so outlandish that it simply never occurred to me.

“Of course, we have to look at the compensation and be realistic about it,” Dimitroff said. “We pretty well know when we are looking to move up five, six, eight, 10 or 21 [spots], what it is going to cost us. We get our heads around that a lot sooner than on draft day.”

The Falcons reportedly have 6-8 defensive tackles on their board with first or second round grades. On one hand, if they have more than four guys on their first round list, that greatly increases the chances of them snagging one of those players simply by waiting (or even moving down), but if not they may be tempted to take a leap up. They’ve done so in the past when they didn’t just have one major hole to address, and this year that’s arguably the case.

This doesn’t mean the Falcons will trade up, and in fact Dimitroff was careful to mention that he might be amenable to trading down, something the team basically never actually does high in the draft. If you’re a betting man or woman, however, you could do a lot worse than placing a wager on the team swapping up.