The interior of both lines tops our list.
The Atlanta Falcons took care of some glaring needs in the 2025 NFL Draft. They brought in two high-upside edge rushers, a likely starting safety, and a player who is expected to compete for a starting role at the nickel; they also nabbed a potential long-term swing tackle. We have to expect some growing pains for rookies, but on paper this team is a lot stronger on defense than they were heading into the week.
While the entire team can still use talent at more or less every position, there are a handful of needs that stand above the rest. I’ve broken down the three biggest needs in my book, plus a handful of other outstanding items.
Center
Ryan Neuzil is a converted guard with 12 career starts, including eight last year in relief of an injured Drew Dalman. He did a fine job of replacing Dalman, but isn’t in the former Falcon’s league as a run blocker and is more solid than great in pass protection. The fact that he’s in this position is a testament to Neuzil and the Falcons for developing him, but it’s also a little scary to be relying on him as the unquestioned starter in a critical season. It’s an odd position to be in as an avowed Neuzil booster, but I never thought the Falcons would be rolling with him with no competition.
The Falcons will be expecting further growth from Neuzil and have a couple of options to back him up, including former late pick Jovaughn Gwyn and Matthew Cindric, who had plenty of starting center experience in college. Gwyn is a player the Falcons obviously like—they have kept him around despite the fact that he hasn’t even sniffed any real playing time—so perhaps he and Neuzil’s development ends up being the story of the summer for the Falcons. I’d still feel much better with more proven depth to give Neuzil a solid push.
Nose tackle/interior defensive line
This was Tre’Shon Diaz’s pick, and with good reason. Besides David Onyemata, who is coming off a bit of a down year, the Falcons have virtually no players with proven high-end play in the NFL. Ruke Orhorhoro and Brandon Dorlus are promising but haven’t played much, Zach Harrison doesn’t have a settled role on this line, Morgan Fox is more of a pass rushing option than a space plugger or run stopper, and Ta’Quon Graham and Kentavius Street are more useful reserves than potential starters. Undrafted free agent Simeon Barrow may actually have a path to a role; it feels like the Falcons were looking at Zion Logue as a potential option here for 2025 before the Bills poached him.
The only in-house candidate for nose tackle that makes sense today is LaCale London, who Diaz and others noted is now listed at 330 pounds on the Falcons’ website. If that’s truly the case, London may have bulked up to handle the duties, and the effective run stopper and already very strong man might thrive as a nose tackle. That would help us feel better, but the Falcons could stand to add more talent at the position and more broadly across the defensive line given that they’re relying on a lot of ifs.
Cornerback
Let’s be clear-eyed about what the Falcons are counting on here: Another strong season from Mike Hughes, who has been up-and-down in his career. A terrific rookie season from Billy Bowman Jr. or a big bounceback from Dee Alford. Good health and legitimate growth from the team’s cadre of would-be backups, from Clark Phillips to Kevin King.
None of those are unreasonable assumptions, and at the very least a Bowman/Alford competition should give the Falcons something better at the nickel in 2025, given that I don’t think Alford is anywhere near that bad and I think Bowman could be really good. The calls for Jalen Ramsey are not just based on the excellence of the player, though, so much as a justified fear that a step back or injury for Hughes will leave the Falcons scrambling to find a capable starter opposite AJ Terrell. I actually feel pretty good about their depth, given that Bowman/Alford, Phillips, Nate Brooks, King, and Mike Ford give them a good raft of options with special teams experience galore.
Now let’s go down a tier to the remaining needs.
Wide receiver
The Falcons have assembled a ton of young receivers to compete for roles, so this is not the most major need you can imagine. But it remains one, for similar reasons to the rest of the positions on this roster: The lack of proven, productive players behind their starters.
Drake London and Darnell Mooney kick ass and Ray-Ray McCloud had an unexpectedly great season, while KhaDarel Hodge and Jamal Agnew give you terrific special teams work with occasional useful receiving chops. If the Falcons did lose a starter, though, it’s not clear they have anyone on the roster who could step in and be truly productive in relief, though they’ll throw 2024 draft pick Casey Washington, 2025 undrafted free agents Quincy Skinner and Nick Nash, and roster incumbents like Phillip Dorsett and Chris Blair at the problem. Someone should step up and seize the de facto WR4 role, and I realize complaining about that seems like nitpicking, but it’s a need unless you expect perfect health from this group in 2025.
Kicker
When you have two kickers vying for a role, someone should step up, but our Evan Birchfield listed this as a position of concern when I polled our team. The reason for that is pretty simple: Younghoe Koo is coming off a nightmare season marred by ineffective kicking and injury, and Lenny Krieg is a total unknown coming off from a strong stint in Europe and an impressive showcase for NFL teams.
If Koo doesn’t bounce back and Krieg scuffles jumping over, the Falcons are in trouble, and we saw last year that trouble at kicker can be a major piece of the difference between an eight win season and a ten win season.
Punter
Inconsistent year-to-year play is baked in to some extent with all but the best punters, so the fact that Bradley Pinion went downhill in every metric that matters last year could be a blip. The fact that they haven’t gotten him any competition suggests the Falcons think that’s the case.
For a team that wants to win the field position battle more frequently than they did in 2024, though, Pinion’s up-and-down campaign last year should mean the Falcons are willing to bring in competition if he looks shaky this summer.