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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Atlanta Falcons General Manager Terry Fontenot, a man who excels at saying plenty of interesting things while revealing nothing of substance, has indicated the team is “wide open,” when it comes to their first round pick,

Here’s the money quote from Fontenot, courtesy of Sport Illustrated’s Daniel Flick:

“It’s a strong draft,” Fontenot said. “We’re going to be staring at some really good players at eight, or whether we’re up a little bit or whether we’re back a little bit, and that’s the excitement. We’re wide open. And I love that about Raheem and the staff - we’re completely wide open.”

It’s easy to take Fontenot at his word here. This is an interesting draft class, one where the top-level talent bleeds into the bottom half of the top ten picks and the depth is outstanding at position groups like wide receiver and even arguably edge rusher. With additional draft ammunition acquired from the Jaguars thanks to the Calvin Ridley trade, the Falcons are well-positioned to move off of No. 8 if they want to. Atlanta’s varied needs, especially on the defensive side of the ball, demand this team have an open mind about the best way to take care of them, especially if they’re not willing to budge off the idea that they’re truly going to pick the best player available at 8. Remember, that may well not be a defender, if the Falcons are sticking to BPA in its purest form.

Of course, there’s cynicism from my end that exists because we hear a combination of “best player available” and “open for business” every year. Like Fontenot in 2023:

"We want to make sure we're taking impact players." Terry Fontenot added, too: "We're open to trading up. We're open to trading back."

— Tori McElhaney (@tori_mcelhaney) April 25, 2023

Or Fontenot in 2022:

Terry Fontenot, Arthur Smith sticking with the practice of taking the best player available in the draft. Fontenot said when you reach, that's "how you make mistakes."

— Tori McElhaney (@tori_mcelhaney) January 11, 2022

Or Fontenot in 2021:

“There are still variables involved, so we know the players that we will be discussing there, and we can all anticipate the first three picks, but it has to actually happen,” Fontenot said Wednesday. “And then from that point we have to weigh the options of, do we trade back compared to the player we could get at 4, or if we trade back, what would be the value. So we have to weigh all those different variables and all those scenarios so we know the players that we’re talking about.

Or “Trader” Thomas Dimitroff basically every single year he was general manager:

“There are a number of positions that we’re looking at more than other years,” Dimitroff said. “I feel like in other years, we’ve been really homed in on potentially one or two, and we have a number of positions that we think can really benefit us at 26. ... In our minds, it gives us an opportunity to consider — of course, we’ll always consider moving up — but also the idea of moving back as well because we feel there are a number of good players at 26 and beyond.”

I lay this out not to make fun of GM-speak in football—okay, maybe I’m making fun of it a little bit—but rather to illustrate that this is an annual talking point for Fontenot and the Falcons. The reality is that the Falcons are unlikely to move up with their quarterback in place and one terrific cornerback, edge rusher, or even wide receiver definitely falling to them at No. 8, and Fontenot has yet to really entertain a trade back from a top ten pick during his time as general manager. The most likely scenario is that the Falcons stay put at No. 8 and pick the best player available on their board, and even that will be tinged a little bit by need in the end, if I had to guess. The need on defense is simply much more dire than on offense right now, making a pick on that side of the ball more likely in my estimation, and there’s bound to be an impact defender the Falcons really like available at 8.

Could they move down? Yes, and the likeliest scenario there would be the Minnesota Vikings striking out on getting higher and still having a quarterback they want available, say J.J. McCarthy or Michael Penix. The Raiders, who are widely rumored to be desperate for a young quarterback, might also be an option. The Falcons won’t go way down in the draft order, but a modest bump for a really compelling deal is the only scenario I can see unfolding on day one of the draft.

Where the “wide open” language rings figures to ring true is actually after that initial pick. The Falcons have a pair of third round picks and Fontenot has not been shy about making moves on the second and third day of the draft, notably moving up from No. 44 a year ago by swapping that pick and No. 110 for No. 38, which turned into guard Matthew Bergeron. The team’s stated desire to add young players to their secondary, the outsized need for pass rushers, the open admission that they’d like to add a third quarterback, and the simple need for plus talent across the board means Fontenot can and likely will jump around chasing players the Falcons believe to be great fits for the new coaching staff and this roster. I’d frankly be surprised if they made both third round selections.

The Falcons aren’t just blowing smoke here, in other words, and I expect Fontenot to make at least one if not multiple trades during this draft and field calls for the No. 8 pick. If you’re expecting Atlanta to move off their top ten selection, however, Fontenot’s track record to this point expects you shouldn’t be.

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MIAMI -- Atlanta Braves ace Spencer Strider will miss the rest of the season after having surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow, the team said Saturday.

Dr. Keith Meister in Arlington, Texas, performed the procedure on Friday, using an internal brace to repair the UCL. Strider avoided Tommy John surgery, which he had in 2019 while at Clemson.

Recovery from the internal brace surgery, which uses an artificial material to make the repair, has allowed pitchers to return to the majors in as few as nine months. Tommy John surgery, which uses a tendon from elsewhere in the body to replace the torn ligament, has a typical rehab period of 12 to 18 months.

Strider complained about discomfort in his elbow after pitching four innings in Atlanta's 6-5 win over Arizona on April 5. An MRI the next day revealed damage to his UCL, and the Braves prepared for the worst.

"You never expect these things to be good or just a blip on the screen," manager Brian Snitker said last week.

Strider was 20-5 in 2023, leading the majors in wins and strikeouts (281). The right-hander had a 3.86 ERA last season.

He had a 7.00 ERA with 12 strikeouts in two starts this year.

The club's first attempt at finding someone to fill Strider's spot in the rotation went poorly. Right-hander Allan Winans was recalled from Triple-A Gwinnett last Sunday after Strider went on the 15-day injured list. Winans allowed seven runs, six earned, over five innings of a disastrous start against the Mets on Thursday and was optioned after the game.

Snitker said the team has been looking at replacement options since Strider initially went down but doesn't have anyone specific in mind yet.

"We're monitoring all those guys that are down there," he said before Saturday's game against the Miami Marlins. "All the starters. We have some good options, and we'll just see where we are after different things. It'll be kind of a day-to-day thing."

The Braves began Saturday in first place in the NL East with an 8-4 record as they attempt to win their seventh straight division title.

The 25-year-old Strider joins a list of big-named pitchers who have suffered significant injuries this season.

Cleveland's Shane Bieber, the New York Yankees' Jonathan Loáisiga, Miami's Eury Pérez and Oakland's Trevor Gott are among the pitchers diagnosed with elbow injuries. Meister also performed Tommy John surgery on Bieber on Friday.

"I hate it. I want to see the stars, the best players play," Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. "I think just as a baseball fan, I'll always be a baseball fan. My son is 16 and is a baseball fan. My daughter is 14, and she's a baseball fan. She comes to the games to watch the best players compete against each other. So we have to figure this out as an industry, as an organization, the whole deal."

The Marlins have dealt with their fair share of pitching injuries. Their ace, Sandy Alcantara, is out for the season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in October. Pérez underwent Tommy John surgery earlier this month after initially being diagnosed with mild elbow inflammation late in the spring.

"We're all trying to figure this out to keep the best players out there," Schumaker said. "As much as I don't want to see Strider facing us, I want to see him pitch in the major leagues for a long time. ... We have to figure this out, and it starts down at the youth sports honestly. My son's in high school and he has a kid on his team that's having Tommy John surgery. So it starts down below, and the whole baseball community has to figure this thing out."

Alex Benigno has been going around Atlanta, Georgia with the admirable mission of removing dangerous refuse, like screws and nails, from thoroughfares. It's a quintessential "not all heroes wear capes" situation.

I discovered Benigno as @atlantamagnetman on Instagram, where he's built a bit of a following and seems to keep a genuinely appreciative fanbase for his noble pursuits in recreational street cleaning. He's also put some serious creative energy into his homebrewed trash collection technology, which is fun to see. As Benigno himself described his enterprise on the Clover Club podcast: "I pull a trailer behind my bicycle, I put magnets on the bottom, and I use it to pick up nails and screws so our tires won't have to." Sounds like a great community service to me.

I dropped Benigno a message on Instagram and he said he'd be down to chat, but I haven't heard back from him in a bit. In fairness, I rarely spelunk into my "requests" inbox either. Luckily for me and anyone else curious about this one-man quest to clean up Atlanta's streets (sounds like a Robocop sequel logline), he did a nice little interview on the above-linked podcast.

It's a slightly meandering conversation between neighbors (the show host lives near Mr. Benigno) and you can skip to 07:45 if you must get straight to trash-collecting stories. But I found the whole episode to be pretty entertaining.

The guy comes across as very conscientious and creative; it makes sense that such a person would build a cool contraption like this magnetic road-cleaning bike trailer. "I have some ADHD projects that I'll just wander into," he says on the show.

As for this project itself, it seems to be a large trailer (hard to imagine a bicycle towing anything much bigger) with big strips of magnets that pull metallic objects off the pavement and into their invisible clutches. They're neodymium magnets, which I've learned are "the strongest kind of permanent magnet commercially available." A wide push-broom brush helps guide errant road flotsam to the magnets.

In addition to an Instagram, it looks like the ATLMM also set up a casual YouTube channel, which provides some good visuals on how his pedal-powered street sweeper works:

Benigno mentioned on the show that "it's crazy how difficult it can be to remove the things [from the magnet] I've picked up," and describes a time some magnets clung to a manhole cover and caused him a major headache.

We don't have anything to compare his trash-collection efficiency to empirically, but he shared that a usual haul is six pounds of trash for 10 miles of biking. Sounds like the dude is getting solid exercise while improving his environment—and now that I've written that, I feel like I've gotten sucked into the script of a 'Parks and Recreation' episode.

Fans of that show might be saying "This sounds like something Chris Traeger and Leslie Knope would dream up." At least, that was my first thought.

This local news clip includes some additional context for my visual learners in the audience:

Unfortunately, road traveling by bicycle involves some inherent risk, especially in a bustling metro like Atlanta. Benigno mentioned having had "lots of close calls," and even said he was hit by a car on his way to work once.

Drivers, please, look out for your fellow road users even if they cause you brief moments of inconvenience. And the Atlanta Magnet Man sounds like somebody we especially want to protect—his slow-moving magnetmobile won't be able to easily make evasive maneuvers, and he's doing all his neighbors a solid favor!

Stay safe out there, Atlanta Magnet Man, may your altruism inspire and your tires always be nail-free.

For the seventh consecutive century, the Atlanta Falcons are in need of real pass rushing help. We’re pinning our hopes on a potent cocktail consisting of one part early round draft pick, one part improvement from young players, and a dash of coaching. Still, it’s clear the Falcons need more on the roster than they have, even beyond a draft pick.

With that in mind, here’s a sampling of players still out there on the EDGE market. We talked about a few players in our defensive line article last week that can be carried over here, but these are choices we haven’t discussed who could join the team’s thin rotation.

While Dupree is still just chilling out there waiting to be signed, a reunion with the Falcons feels less likely than it did pre-James Smith-Williams.

That’s because of the numbers game more than anything else. With the Falcons widely expected to snag a starting-caliber edge rusher in the upcoming draft, Dupree would have been an addition if the Falcons wanted a reliable player to take on a significant number of snaps in rotation with the new guy and/or Ebiketie. Instead, they signed Smith-Williams to join Lorenzo Carter and DeAngelo Malone on the roster, and unless the team sours on Ebiketie badly it’s hard to imagine they’ll sign a veteran player who won’t be dirt cheap and would expect significant playing time. Remember, Dupree played at least 59% of the snaps in every single game a year ago.

Still, while Ryan Nielsen is gone and a large chunk of the defensive coaching staff with him, the Falcons still need edge rushers pretty badly, and Dupree is a familiar face for the coaches who do remain. He also tied for the team lead in sacks with 6.5, provided rock solid run defense throughout the season, and was durable and reliable. If the Falcons can’t land their pass rusher of choice early, I’d still welcome a reunion with Dupree for another year.

A player I liked a lot heading into last year, Bowser has played just nine games over the past two seasons thanks to injury, including exactly zero a year ago. That’s a disappointing outcome for a player who had seven sacks in 17 games back in 2022 for Baltimore, and the soon-to-be 29-year-old has yet to find a new home.

If Atlanta’s looking for an interesting bounceback candidate and think Bowser is healthy enough to contribute, he’d be a fun addition. As Steve Palazzolo at Pro Football Focus noted late last week on Twitter, Raheem Morris’s defense will ask its EDGEs to drop into coverage more than the average team, and Bowser did plenty of that (and did so with reasonable success) in Baltimore. He’s also a capable if not outrageously productive pass rusher and a consistently useful run defender, as well, making him another useful addition to the group.

New Falcons coach Raheem Morris' Rams defense had 355 snaps where at least one edge defender dropped into coverage last year, most in the league.Most coverage snaps among top EDGEs:Dallas Turner 238Laiatu Latu 55Jared Verse 27Chop Robinson 15

— Steve Palazzolo (@PFF_Steve) April 12, 2024

If Bowser’s market stays cool and the Falcons want reliability and a little upside at EDGE post-draft, they could do a lot worse.

He had one of his more successful seasons in Atlanta with Raheem Morris back in 2020, before his breakout year in Detroit in 2021, which saw him put up 7.5 sacks. Harris has navigated injuries and a lack of production in the two seasons since then, but the familiarity with Morris and the glimpses of real upside might be enough to intrigue Atlanta anew.

The track record here suggests that a healthy Bowser would be a better option for the Falcons, but if injury is a concern in a pretty thin market, Harris could round out this group effectively.

If you’re simply looking to add some pass rushing punch to this group, you might be tempted to take a closer look at Ngakoue. His production and efficacy have been slipping steadily over the past couple of seasons, so you’d be betting on a bit of a bounceback here in the same way that you would with Bowser or Harris.

The bet is a little different, though. Where Bowser is a well-rounded EDGE and Harris is at least a capable enough run defender, Ngakoue is one-dimensional and would be best deployed on third downs and obvious passing downs to pin his ears back and get after the quarterback. His price point would be a sticking point, but given that the Falcons do have players who already do multiple things well but lack any sort of game-changing pass rushing upside, Ngakoue would be an interesting addition if he was cheap.

Like Ngakoue, Lawson’s production has been slipping a bit over the past couple of years. Historically, though, he’s offered you a capable, physical player who can hold his own in coverage, chip in as a pass rusher, and contribute against the run. You’d be betting on his ability to do so in Atlanta, but in such a thin market, it’s not a bad bet if the price is right.

You’ll notice a lot of talk of gambles, upsides, and price points in this article, and that’s for good reason. This is not the market you want to be searching for a top-flight option in, and the Falcons really have to rely on the draft to bring that caliber of player in. Still, if the goal is just to round out their edge rusher group with a capable player with a track record, one of these players would provide that. Expect the Falcons to look hard at snagging one after the draft.

Dee Alford Josh Ali Tyler Allgeier Troy Andersen Jessie Bates III Matthew Bergeron Chris Blair Natrone Brooks Robert Burns Lorenzo Carter Kirk Cousins Drew Dalman Lukas Denis Arnold Ebiketie Milo Eifler Kaden Elliss Tucker Fisk John FitzPatrick Eddie Goldman Ta'Quon Graham Richie Grant Jovaughn Gwyn Antonio Hamilton Demone Harris Zach Harrison Taylor Heinicke DeMarcco Hellams Kyle Hinton KhaDarel Hodge Mike Hughes Grady Jarrett Kevin King Younghoe Koo Nate Landman John Leglue Chris Lindstrom Drake London LaCale London Austin Mack DeAngelo Malone Jake Matthews Ray-Ray McCloud Liam McCullough Kaleb McGary Darnell Mooney Rondale Moore Donavan Mutin Ryan Neuzil Storm Norton Ade Ogundeji David Onyemata Clark Phillips III Bradley Pinion Kyle Pitts Willington Previlon Bijan Robinson James Smith-Williams Kentavius Street Ryan Swoboda Tre Tarpley III A.J. Terrell Tommy Togiai Tyler Vrabel Carlos Washington Jr. Barry Wesley Avery Williams Charlie Woerner

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