After the 49ers selected Trey Lance with the No. 3 pick, it was fairly evident that if the Falcons didn’t receive any enticing trade offers, they were staying at No. 4 and selecting Florida tight end Kyle Pitts.
After the 49ers selected Trey Lance with the No. 3 pick in the draft, it was fairly obvious that if the Falcons didn’t receive any enticing trade offers, they were staying at No. 4 and selecting Florida tight end Kyle Pitts. NFL scouts and analysts have since raved over the the selection of Pitts and the team’s draft class in its entirety.
But if the 49ers had not selected Lance, would Atlanta have taken the North Dakota State QB over Pitts?
We have previously seen clips of the Falcons draft room after they selected Pitts and while conducting a trade with the Denver Broncos in the second round. However, a Twitter account named “NFL Updates” released a video clip of Atlanta’s war room prior to the team being on the clock, highlighting their reaction to the 49ers selecting Lance.
The excitement coming from the Falcons war room doesn’t necessarily stem from the 49ers taking a quarterback, because that was always the plan. When a team trades up from No. 12 to No. 3, it will almost always be for a quarterback. The pseudo-excitement in the Falcons’ war room only comes from an interaction between Falcons general manager Terry Fontenot and head coach Arthur Smith.
Once it was revealed who the 49ers were selecting, Fontenot and Smith joked in excitement citing Smith’s internal prediction from over a month ago.
“You called it a month ago,” stated Fontenot as he pats the back of the Falcons head coach, both smiling. Falcons owner Arthur Blank can even be heard echoing Fontenot’s comments.
So could this mean that the Falcons walked into the war room on draft night with Kyle Pitts as their number one option?
It’s probable. Every team, especially the ones picking in the top five, have clear plans for the different potential draft outcomes. Speculation was rampant leading up to the draft, but looking at how things unfolded, it does seem like the Falcons got their guy in Pitts.
As we all know, though, there is no way Fontenot, or any Falcons leadership, would publicly say they wanted any player other than Pitts.
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