The Falcons essentially had three routes in front of them on Thursday night, with a quarterback, best player available at other positions, or a trade down. If you boil that down further, in reality there were two clear paths: Build around Matt Ryan, or start paving the road for a new quarterback to take over.
I indicated that I thought the Falcons would go the latter route, based on the belief that the team would find it difficult to pass up a top quarterback prospect if he was available and atop their board. It is rare that a team fires a coaching staff and general manager into a still-burning sun and elects to stick with their current quarterback, and I was genuinely impressed by Justin Fields, Trey Lance, and even Zach Wilson, who only wasn’t worth discussing because he was locked in as the #2 pick months ago.