On Thursday, the 2025 NFL draft kicks off from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Who the Atlanta Falcons will pick is a mystery, but could a surprise be in store? Let’s take a look at some previous draft day surprises that left Falcons fans shocked.
Since the inception of the Atlanta Falcons in 1966, they’ve had 59 first round draft picks. On Thursday, Atlanta will select their 60th first round draft pick for the franchise. Who that is, and whether or not they’ll live up to expectations is yet to be seen.
One thing is for certain, though, and that is you can expect the unexpected when it comes to Atlanta’s first round choices. Their unpredictability has opened the door for football content creators to poke fun at the potential for Atlanta to select quarterback Shedeur Sanders.
This is one of the years especially where I feel like no one knows where the front office’s head is. Defense, especially the pass rush, is a necessity, but maybe Atlanta goes in a different direction, such as taking an offensive lineman, a receiver, or a safety. However I think I speak for all of Atlanta when I say please not another quarterback (I know it’s tempting, Terry, but spare us.)
Mock Drafts are all over the place as well when it comes to Atlanta; Pro Football Focus has Atlanta taking edge rusher Mike Green from Marshall, Matt Urben at the Falcons Wire has us snagging tackle Kelvin Banks from Texas, and Josh Kendall from The Athletic shows us trading down to pick 22 and taking edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku from Boston College.
It’s safe to say that since their is no clear answer for the first round pick, then surprising fans this year will be a tougher than it has been in years past, although I don’t put it past this team at all.
While we wait for someone to get handed a Falcons’ jersey from Roger Goodell, lets take a look at some of the biggest first round draft surprises in Falcons history.
2024: Atlanta selects Michael Penix Jr. 8th overall
Maybe it’s too early to say this, but I feel like this will go down as one of if not the best pick in the past ten years for the franchise. But boy oh boy, were fans ready to riot when Penix was selected 8th overall last year.
On the surface the pick is good given Penix’s obvious talent, and given what we know now, it’s the best pick Atlanta could have made to set up the future of the franchise. Here’s arguably the most mature quarterback in this draft class, competing with the likes of Bo Nix in regards to age and experience, coming off two stellar seasons and a National Championship berth. On paper that sounds like a no brainer top 10 pick, however when taking a look at Penix’ significant injury history at Indiana that prematurely ended several of his seasons, coupled with the teams’ then recent expensive acquisition of Kirk Cousins, the move to get Penix was a head scratcher to all of us.
I don’t think many of us would have minded the team selecting a quarterback at some point in the draft, but because of the team’s ‘win now’ mentality having previously missed six postseasons, it seemed odd to spend a pick on a player who we thought wouldn’t contribute in a year when postseason was paramount. That’s especially true with a quarterback who was already much older than other prospects in the draft.
It seemed like Atlanta wanted to do the Aaron Rodgers-Jordan Love move in Green Bay that worked out for them once Rodgers moved on, but because of unforeseen circumstances, Penix saw the field a lot earlier than anticipated, and luckily for us, he was ready to take control.
2023: Atlanta selects Bijan Robinson 8th overall
Leave it up to Atlanta to leave their fans’ jaws on the floor in back-to-back years. When Bijan Robinson was selected in 2023, fans weren’t as upset as they’d be when Penix was selected, but there was still an uproar across the fanbase. Opinions on this pick were a lot more mixed however, with proponents of the pick arguing that Robinson was a generational talent running back that only comes around every couple of years, such as Christian McCaffrey, Saquon Barkely, and this year potentially Ashton Jeanty. Their argument was that these players are just too good to pass up, and its almost better to snag them while their still on the board instead of letting them wind up in another teams backfield.
While yes this is true, and Robinson has been a difference maker in the backfield, opposers of this pick argued the fact that we already had a running back in Tyler Allgeier who earned his reps and took over the backfield, quietly marching his way to a 1,000 yard rookie season. Before the draft that year, cornerback Christian Gonzalez was one of the main names linked to Atlanta, and given the teams struggles in stopping the pass the year prior, it seemed like a good fit at the time. Mock drafts consistently had Robinson falling out of the top ten and even out of the top 20, mainly due to the concern surrounding running back longevity in the league, with teams becoming increasingly less likely to buy into a runner long term. In hindsight however, the pick was a great move for Atlanta as Robinson has been a bright spot since he stepped onto the field, and while Allgeier’s production decreased quite a bit he’s still been productive, and both backs have complemented each other well in Atlanta’s two back system.
1992: Atlanta selects Tony Smith 19th overall
In the 1992 NFL draft, Atlanta had two first round picks. One was the 7th pick, which they’d use to draft tackle Bob Whitfield from Stanford, who’d stay on the team for 11 years and make the 1998 pro bowl. The other was the 19th pick, which they’d use on running back Tony Smith from Southern Mississippi who racked up 998 yards his third year at the school. This pick wasn’t so much to the dismay of fans, but instead then head coach Jerry Glanville, who let it be known that he wanted the team to go in a different direction and draft a defensive back with star cornerback Deion Sanders one year away from free agency.
Vice President of Player Personnel Ken Herock seems to be the one who pulled the trigger, citing the need for a dynamic runner given that that no Falcons running backs had hit 1,000 yards for three straight seasons. Glanville wasn’t happy at all with the decision, so much so that it reflected on the field.
During his rookie year, Smith would enter a five-day holdout until he signed a $2.5 million contract which at the time was the richest in team history, and then proceeded to lead the team with 87 carries. However the subsequent year, Smith wouldn’t see the backfield at all, a pattern that repeated itself in his third year until he eventually found himself as a free agent, and labeled as one of Atlanta’s biggest busts of all time.
It’s also interesting to note that Smith was a direct result of the trade that sent Brett Favre to Green Bay in exchange for the 17th pick. The Falcons would use this pick in another trade with Dallas to drop down two spots to the 19th pick, selecting Smith. As if he didn’t already have a big enough cloud cast over his career already, right?
2009: Atlanta selects Peria Jerry 24th overall
When you select in the latter part of the first round of the NFL draft, the lines start to become blurred between first round talent and second round talent, and many first round talent players slip into day 2 as a result. It also means it’s harder to determine whether or not these players will make an impact right away, or sometimes even at all, and that was the case for Atlanta’s 24th overall selection of defensive tackle Peria Jerry in 2009.
Selecting Jerry at the time wasn’t a bad option, however many fans at the time were quick to scrutinize the decision given that linebacker Clay Matthews was taken two picks after Jerry, another future successful player that Green Bay would take right from under us. Matthews was on several mock drafts for Atlanta and would have potentially created one of the most dynamic pass rushing duos with John Abraham, should he have been drafted to Atlanta. Former general manager Thomas Dimitroff himself even admitted regretting the decision.
One of the main reasons for the skepticism had little to do with the talent, and instead was based on Jerry’s injuries suffered all throughout college. While he was widely regarded as the second best defensive tackle in the class, these injuries caused some teams who could have used a buff to their interior defensive line to pass on Jerry, and unfortunately for him, the reservations general managers had proved true as Jerry was only in the league for five years, totaling only 5.5 sacks and 14 tackles for loss.
The team also already had Jonathan Babineaux as their best player at defensive tackle, and while having another solid defensive tackle would have been nice, I doubt Jerry could have reached a level of dominance like Ndamukong Suh, but it’s a shame we never really got to find out.
2016: Atlanta selects Keanu Neal 17th overall
It may come as a surprise, but the fan favorite safety who was instrumental in Atlanta’s 2016 Super Bowl run didn’t start off as quite the favorite pick when he was drafted. With many mock drafts predicting that Atlanta would focus on picking someone within the front seven, either defensive tackles Jarran Reed and Sheldon Rankins, linebackers Darron Lee and Myles Jack, or edge rusher Shaq Lawson.
Instead, second year head coach Dan Quinn wanted to take a page out of the Seahawks Legion of Boom secondary and find Atlanta’s Kam Chancellor. Fans went with the mock draft consensus that Neal was at best a second round pick, and that we reached and could have gotten one of the aforementioned prospects in the first round and still have gotten Neal in the second.
Again, with every pick comes defenders on both sides, and there were fans that saw Quinn’s vision of a hard hitting physical safety that could be a threat overtop and in the box. Even though Neal suffered injuries in the latter part of his Falcons’ tenure, when he was on the field he was easily one of the team’s best players on that side of the ball, and it’s hard to see Atlanta making the Super Bowl in the 2016 season or excelling on defense in 2017 without Neal.
Comment below any Falcons draft picks that caught you by surprise, or if there are any you’d put on this list instead. The 2025 NFL draft kicks off at 8pm on Thursday, and should the Falcons cause a heated online discourse by completing a three-peat of controversial draft picks, maybe we’ll do a part two to this piece!