The NFL combine starts next week, and earlier today The Morning Shift reacted to The Athletic’s first beat writer mock draft, reacted to Atlanta Falcons beat writer for The Athletic Josh Kendall mocking Alabama wide receiver Germie Bernard to the Falcons with the 48th overall pick, and explained why they think the Falcons should draft an interior defensive lineman with the 48th overall pick despite their need at wide receiver.
“I am looking at interior defensive line first, because I think that that there’s a lot of depth there, and you’re gonna have your Walter Nolen’s of the world go in the first round, but a lot of times that middle of the second round can be where it’s at as far as interior defenders, and the free agent crop there’s a couple of guys, but you’re also probably gonna over pay because of what those couple of guys can bring to your team, so I think I would look at interior defensive tackle, guys that can play the A gap at this point, and I think that’s something that we sorely need.” former Falcons offensive lineman Mike Johnson said
There’s a lot more quality free agent wide receivers in this free agent class than there are free agent defensive tackles and interior defensive lineman to Mike’s point, and even though this is a deep wide receiver draft it’s also a deep defensive lineman draft as well, so as of right now it looks like the Falcons would be better off getting a wide receiver in free agency and using that 48th overall pick on an interior defensive lineman.