Atlanta Falcons general manager has refused to throw caution to the wind over the past two years.
One year ago, Fontenot was making headlines, taking Michael Penix Jr. with the eighth overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft weeks after signing Kirk Cousins to a four-year, $180 million contract in free agency. It was a reckless decision that put the Falcons in salary cap hell and there’s no resolution in sight as they continue to find a trade partner that will take a chunk of Cousins’s contract.
On Thursday night, Fontenot made another controversial decision. After selecting Georgia edge rusher Jalon Walker with the 15th overall pick, the Falcons traded back into the first round with a costly trade that could put make franchise’s future very difficult.
Falcons Make Costly Trade Up to Select James Pearce Jr. in NFL Draft
The Falcons selected James Pearce Jr. with the 26th overall pick in the draft on Thursday night and the Tennessee edge rusher carries plenty of upside ahead of his professional career. Pearce led the SEC with 10 sacks during his second season with the Volunteers in 2023 and backed it up with 7.5 sacks last season, giving the Falcons a double-headed front that can get after the quarterback.
For a team that ranked 31st in the league with 31 sacks, investing in the pass rush is a good strategy. But the Falcons didn’t just invest a first-round pick into the deal, they traded the 46th overall pick, the 242nd overall pick and their 2026 first-round pick to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for the No. 26 overall pick used to select Pearce and the 101st overall pick.
We have completed a trade with the Los Angeles Rams pic.twitter.com/O5Ki9aqo0u
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) April 25, 2025
Pearce is a good prospect but the Falcons only had five selections to play with entering the draft. One of those picks was coughed up in another reckless decision as Atlanta sent its third-rounder to the New England Patriots for Matthew Judon last fall. Judon had 5.5 sacks but never panned out in Atlanta and their win-now movement hurt their chances of building around Penix.
It also is a risky bet on Pearce’s potential. Instead of being a good player, Pearce has to become an elite one based on the draft capital used to invest in him.
Consider that the Minnesota Vikings made a trade-up sending a 2024 fifth-round pick and their third- and fourth-round selections in this year’s draft to trade up for Dallas Turner one year ago. The investment didn’t produce an immediate return with just three sacks in Turner’s rookie season but his expectations are extremely high entering Year 2.
If Pearce was just a first-round pick, the pressure would be different. But the added capital intensifies the expectations. It’s a move that could pay off and get Fontenot back in the good graces after botching the Cousins deal one year ago.
But it could also send him to the unemployment line, if things go wrong, and it'll create a future problem for the next GM to untangle.