An early look at the 2018 Draft

Nose Tackle: Vita Vea

We’ll look at Defensive Tackle Vita Vea, from Washington next. He’s 6’5, 344 pounds. He’s basically a Paul Soliai type of player. And should be considered if Poe doesn’t resign. Like most huge guys, his work isn’t all about the stats. He’s a mammoth sized NT who does the gritty work.

Edge Rusher: Arden Key

Next, we got a Defensive End, Arden Key, from LSU. This guy is a prototypical built end. 6’6, 240. Long arms. Lean. His college production warrants him consideration, alone. 16 sacks, 26 QB hits, 70 hurries, 19 TFL. He’s probably going to be well out of Atlantas reach though. And Atlanta won’t or shouldn’t trade up for rotational purposes.

Some Other Possibilities

Bradley Chubb and Harold Landry are both ACC pass rushers who are honestly two of my favorite prospects early on. Chubb is a little bigger, at 6’4 and 275 while Landry is 6’3 and 250. The production is there with both of them. Chubb having 9 sacks in each of his last two seasons, and a whopping 21 tackles for loss last season while Landry had 18 sacks alone last year with a crazy 22 tackles for loss this past season and 16 tackles for a loss the year before that one. I believe both are out of Atlanta’s range but if for some reason they aren’t, adding them to the rotation would be deadly.

Next: Atlanta Falcons: Jalen Collins continues to make strides heading into 2017

Derrick Nnadi is a Defensive Tackle from FSU that I believe is an early guy mocked to Atlanta, and for good reason. His Run defense is pretty good, having 64 run stops in his college career. He has good size at 6’1 and 310+ as well. And it looks like his best is yet to come.

We’ll end it here. Of course, there will be prospects who will rise and fall over and over before the 2018 NFL Draft actually gets here, but lets see if any of these guys are considered once next off season rolls around.