Falcons plan to seek help for the defense at the NFL combine, draft

The Falcons currently hold the 15th pick overall in the draft and plan to use most — if not all — of their five picks to help the defense.

“This draft is loaded, defensively,” Fontenot said. “When I say best player available for us, we’re talking about not reaching for needs. Not reaching for ... you want to take impact players off the board. So, you want to make sure you do that.”

The Falcons need upgrades and depth on all three levels of the defense.

Up front, the Falcons need pass rushers, and their best defensive tackles — David Onyemata and Grady Jarrett are 32 and 31 years old, respectively, and have high salary-cap numbers.

The Falcons finished 31st in the league in sacks, with 31. Only New England (28) had fewer. The defense allowed a touchdown on 5.9% of opponent passes, which ranked 31st in the league.

Also, the Falcons need upgrades and No. 2 and No. 3 cornerback and at the safety spot opposite of Jessie Bates III as Justin Simmons appears headed for free agency.

“Very excited about this year’s draft and with what we’ll be able to do at 15 or whatever pick that is,” Fontenot said.

The Falcons could trade back and amass some draft picks.

“We basically had our February meetings a couple weeks ago,” Fontenot said. “That’s when we have all the college scouts in town, and the coaches aren’t in those meetings. This is just based off film. We don’t even have confirmed measurables on all the players.”

Fontenot, a former scout, loves the February meeting as a marker for the scouting season.

“We haven’t sat in front of all the players and went through that process,” Fontenot said. “It was just based off the film. That’s a really cool time because we don’t have anything else that’s distracting (us) from the actual film and the actual football players.”

The Falcons then set the preliminary board following the big meeting.

“Now, as we continue to gather information, everything matters,” Fontenot said. “Look, we had four hours of interviews last night, some really, really good players, some really cool interviews. It’s really exciting.”

The defensive linemen and linebackers will work out Thursday at Lucas Oil Stadium. The defensive backs will work Friday.

“This is a good draft, and so that all these things matter,” Fontenot said. “The way they work out, all those things, the meetings, the assessment of their mental (ability) all those things matter, but it always goes back to the football part.”

The Falcons will put a lot of stock in how the players performed in college and use the combine numbers to support their analysis.

“That’s where you do have to stay disciplined because if you start shifting your board a lot based off what they’re doing in their (athletic gear), that’s not good,” Fontenot said. “So, we make sure we set that board at this time and get a good snapshot of it. So, it’s always based on football.”

Fontenot has his favorite part of the combine.

“It’s spending time with the players again,” Fontenot said. “Last night was really fun. There’s a lot of cool players with really cool stories and their backgrounds and what they’ve gone through.”

The Falcons not only want to upgrade the talent level, but they want players with good character.

“Those things are so important to makeup and make sure you’re bringing players in, getting to spend time with them and really learning about them,” Fontenot said. “Seeing, what they’re all about and spending the time with the players.”

With the initial draft board set, the Falcons’ analytics will help with the data on the players.

“We spend a lot of time with our analytics group,” Fontenot said. “They’re involved in every decision we make in terms of giving us layers of information, whether we’re talking about measurables, historical data, all those things. We always want all levels of information.”