Head coach Raheem Morris and the Atlanta Falcons are currently gearing up for the upcoming 2024 NFL season, which is slated to begin in just under a month. The Falcons surprised many this offseason when, after signing free agent quarterback Kirk Cousins to a lucrative contract, they also used their first round draft selection to draft another quarterback, Michael Penix Jr. out of Washington, giving Morris perhaps two quarterbacks on his roster who feel they should be starting.

One of the common criticisms of this decision was that the Falcons were seemingly contradicting their win-now move of signing Cousins by drafting another quarterback instead of shoring up other weak points on the roster–most notably the defensive line. Although the Falcons did use later draft picks on this, on Sunday they got some bad news about one of those draft selections.

“The Falcons placed rookie edge Bralen Trice on IR, ending his season,” reported Field Yates of ESPN on X, formerly Twitter. “A huge bummer for their third-round pick.”

Trice was coincidentally a teammate of Michael Penix Jr. at the University of Washington, having helped guide the Huskies all the way to a a national championship appearance this past season before being drafted with the 74th overall pick by the Falcons this past April.

A fascinating situation

As previously mentioned, the Falcons entered what many presumed to be a “win now” mode by signing Cousins in free agency, and then immediately contradicted that sentiment by not using their first round selection on the areas of weakness that existed on their roster, most notably on the defensive line and in the defensive backfield.

While Atlanta’s defense did take a step forward in 2023, the question of how much of that can be attributed to the shockingly weak slate of quarterbacks the team faced throughout last season is certainly fair to ask. Judging by the team’s 2024 schedule, it’s unlikely they will be able to get away with the severe lack of pass rush that they showed throughout 2023–and which has really been a problem for the organization dating back to the days of Matt Ryan.

Cousins is almost guaranteed to provide a major boost over the quarterback production that the Falcons got out of Desmond Ridder a year ago, but if the defense isn’t able to hold up its end of the bargain, Atlanta could be in danger of missing out on the playoffs for the seventh straight year.