In a roundup on of draft report cards of national writers by footballoutsiders.com, the Falcons received the third lowest grade, just ahead of Houston and the New York Giants.
FootballOutsiders, one of the top analytics sites, consolidated the grades and broke down the consensus, best, worst and most polarizing draft classes of 2019 and called it the 2019 Draft Report Card Report.
They analyzed the report cards of ESPN’s Mel Kiper, Rotoworld’s Evan Silva, Yahoo’s Eric Edholm, USA Today’s Nate Davis, Sporting News Vinnie Iyer, NFL.Com’s Chad Reuter, Bleacher Report’s Kristopher Knox, Washington Post’s Mark Maske, SBNation’s Dan Kadar, Sports Illustrated Andy Benoit, CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco and USA Today’s Doug Farrar.
New England had the highest draft grade of 3.80, followed by the Cardinals (3.63) and Washington (3.57).
The Giants (1.92), Texans (1.98) and the Falcons (2.31) had the three lowest draft grades.
Reuter gave the Falcons a B-plus and Farrar gave them a D. (Of course, we were underwhelmed and gave them a C-minus).
The Falcons selected Boston College guard Chris Lindstrom in the first round with the 14th overall pick. They traded back into the first round to select Kaleb McGary with the 31st overall pick.
The comments were scathing:
“Lindstrom feels like a safe pick that borders on tepid, and trading up for McGary feels like a reach to many. The selections are especially interesting when thinking about all the money Atlanta dedicated to their offensive line in free agency.
“One of the biggest criticisms lobbed at Atlanta is that they managed to waste draft capital. The Falcons traded up three times, sacrificing a handful of picks over this year and the next in doing so. With no picks on Day 2, one would think that Atlanta would be more careful with their selections.”
Silva was not impressed with the Falcons final three picks (Pitt running back Qadree Ollison, Washington cornerback Jordan Miller and Louisiana-Monroe wide receiver Marcus Green) and called them “throwaways.”
“It just didn't seem like the Falcons had much of a plan coming into a draft praised for its massive depth.”
Farrar, who gave them the lowest grade, wrote:
"Overall, this draft had the Falcons taking developmental and low-ceiling players," Farrar wrote, "when they needed to hit home runs to stay competitive in the NFC South."
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