Rumors: Atlanta Falcons To Land Reed and Orakpo?

Fortunately, the Atlanta Falcons’ front-seven won’t give nightmares to fans any longer. The Free Agency is on deck, starting tomorrow at 4 pm ET.

Atlanta invested heavily last spring to give a new life to the interior defensive line. The front office brought in Paul Soliai and Tyson Jackson via Free Agency. Neither had the impact anticipated and the line is still a mess today. Corey Peters appears to be gone, Jonathan Massaquoi has been waived and potential starters at the defensive end position are scary, featuring Malliciah Goodman and Cliff Matthews.

The linebacker group is even more spooky, with a bunch of rotational players in play for starter positions if the season were to start tomorrow. Paul Worrilow, Joplo Bartu and Prince Shembo are the best options. As helpful as they have been, they are clearly neither a good short-term nor long-term answer.

Moreover, the Falcons, according to the Yahoo! Sports NFL insider Rand Getlin, have lost to Free Agency the only great piece of this group, Sean Weatherspoon. The Missouri alumnus, who has missed the last two seasons due to several serious injuries, signed a one-year contract with the Arizona Cardinals.

It comes with no surprise that the front-seven, and especially the linebacker squad, needs a massive upgrade. Not much news have filtered from the Atlanta Falcons’ headquarters during the “legal tempering” period. Although, a couple of rumors have emerged this last couple of days. The ex-Houston Texans linebacker Brooks Reed appears to “lean towards” Atlanta, according to Rand Getlin.

Also, the Falcons are supposedly the “front-runner” to land the ex-Washington Redskins linebacker Brian Orakpo, as reports Dianna Russini.

Both signings would be clear upgrades from today’s situation at the linebacker position. But Brian Orakpo, who has amassed 10.0 sacks in 2013, would need to stay healthy. The 28-year old linebacker already missed two full seasons in his 6-year career with the Redskins due to injuries. He was kept off the field last season because of a pectoral muscle tear.