It’s every fan’s favorite time of year: hope season. The 90-man rosters are set for the summer, with most teams knowing the general framework for the team they’re going to be in the fall. However, there are a handful of teams that still have a few serious questions to answer in the coming months.
Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons were a big story of NFL Draft weekend for reasons on and off the field, but let’s focus on their on-field evaluation. They drafted Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. in the first round, hopefully fixing a pass rush problem that has plagued the team for over a decade. Despite addressing the need, they’ve left themselves susceptible against the run with the players they’ve assembled on the interior defensive line and linebacker room. Neither Walker nor Pearce is among the biggest defenders, so there’s a real chance that the Falcons’ run defense could be so bad it takes them out of games. With the development of quarterback Michael Penix Jr. still looming, the Falcons may find themselves in a spot where they regret trading up for Pearce at the bottom of the first round.
That was a risk they were willing to take, but it feels like the Falcons have built the ultimate bend-but-don’t-break defense with a quarterback who has only three starts on the other side of it.
Cincinnati Bengals
Cincinnati will have one of the best offenses in the league — that will always be true as long as Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are all on the same team. What they needed to do was fix a defense that had really started to deteriorate in talent over the past few years.
They addressed the issue to some degree with early picks on Shemar Stewart, Demetrius Knight Jr. and Barrett Carter, but all those players are long-term projects for a defense that needs help right now. Perhaps those guys will get off to a hot start and be productive pros, but they might be a couple years away from being the impact players the Bengals’ defense needs.
Even Dylan Fairchild, the offensive guard from Georgia the Bengals took in Round 3, is a bit of a project. All of these guys have high-end athleticism and upside, but there is a worry that they won’t be ready to get the Bengals where they need to be to compete for a Super Bowl this season. This is a very volatile draft class that could swing in either direction.
Houston Texans
Houston wisely picked up draft capital by trading down, but the Texans spent only one premium pick on offensive line in Minnesota offensive tackle Aireontae Ersery. That’s probably because they spent a lot on the offensive line during free agency, but it’s fair to wonder if they’ve acquired enough quality talent up front. The additions of Cam Robinson, Laken Tomlinson and Ed Ingram make for a crowded room on the offensive line, but they have to get more talented up front to avoid the disaster they saw last year under offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, who was let go after the season. They’ve likely fixed their wide receiver problem with the selection of Iowa State wide receivers Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel, but that might not have actually been Houston’s biggest problem. It addressed the offensive line, but maybe not in the most productive manner.
San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers had a bizarre draft. They started off with two players in Mykel Williams and Alfred Collins to help them get tougher against the run, but then they doubled back with two third-round picks that might make life harder for those guys. Linebacker Nick Martin and cornerback Upton Stout are two of the smallest defensive players in the draft for their positions. As third-round picks, they’ll be expected to start soon. It’ll be interesting to see if those guys can get on the field early and buck the trend as smaller players who will be a part of the run defense as they try to fix that unit and get back to a championship-caliber roster.
San Francisco’s offense should be more stable than it was a year ago, but its defense might be volatile with the additions the Niners made in the third round — unless Williams and Collins are truly elite run defenders off the bat.
