Daniel Jeremiah has Falcons taking QB Trey Lance at #4 in his first mock draft

Mock draft season is upon us, and while these selections will change a number of times between now and April, it’s always fun to go through the hypotheticals of what teams may possibly do if the NFL Draft happened today.

NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah cooked up his first mock draft for 2021 and in it the Atlanta Falcons go with their quarterback of the future. While there’s much debate about who that QB will be, Jeremiah is currently of the mindset the Birds will go with Trey Lance of North Dakota State. Lance is the third QB taken within the first four picks, right after Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence and BYU’s Zach Wilson.

Below is the snippet written out to justify the selection:

This decision will likely come down to Lance versus Ohio State’s Justin Fields. I can make a strong argument for both players, but I’ll stick with Lance because of his advantage as a decision-maker on the field.

As mentioned, Justin Fields was on the board for Atlanta to pick in the hypothetical mock draft. It may be a bit controversial to assume that the Falcons would pass on the Ohio State QB if they were to pick a quarterback, but we have no idea about how new General Manager Terry Fontenot and Head Coach Arthur Smith view any of the prospective QBs in the draft. Things seem very wide open at the moment.

Fields ended up going to the Carolina Panthers at 8 in the mock draft.

The first non-QB off the board was LSU’s Ja’Marr Chase to the Dolphins at 3. He and Heisman winner DeVonta Smith of Alabama (mocked to the Lions at 7) will battle it out to be the first wide receiver selected in April.

Another interesting note was that Oregon offensive tackle Penei Sewell fell all the way to Dallas at 10, despite many feeling that he’s the best non-QB in the draft. Jeremiah actually has Northwestern’s Rashawn Slater as the first tackle off the board.

Alabama cornerback Patrick Surtain was the first defensive player off the board, going to Philadelphia at 6.

You can find Jeremiah’s full mock draft here.