The Atlanta Falcons have been searching for a way to add production to their defensive tackle room all offseason, and on the morning of roster cuts, they finally struck a deal to do just that--acquiring DT Gervon Dexter from the Chicago Bears in exchange for Clark Phillips III and a fifth-round draft pick.
That's a wildly low price for such a productive player, but also reinforces how the interior of this defensive line looks. Dexter will join Da'Shawn Hand, La'Cale London, Maason Smith, Zach Harrison, and Brandon Dorlus as key players--but his presence will allow Atlanta to deploy them creatively.
That makes six players who are penciled in as roster locks for the Falcons at defensive tackle, so things are set unless they decide to roster a seventh IDL. So it sure sounds like the Dexter trade put the nail in the coffin for undrafted rookie Carlos Allen Jr.'s chances of making the 53-man roster.
Carlos Allen Jr.'s roster odds aren't looking good after the Gervon Dexter trade
Allen Jr. was a late-summer standout for the Falcons, as he tore up both joint practices with the Indianapolis Colts and their second preseason game. He logged a TFL and a pressure that forced an incompletion, and in the preseason finale against Miami, his 86.2 run defense grade from Pro Football Focus was second-highest on the team. Sounds like a guy making a late push for a roster spot.
In a defensive tackle room desperate for contributors, proving your potential is the perfect recipe to stick around--until the Dexter trade that was, because now, the team doesn't have any room for him. Atlanta already had five roster locks in the DT room before making this trade, and now they have six.
The unfortunate truth is that even if the Dirty Birds didn't acquire Dexter, Allen's roster hopes still would have been in limbo. He was already competing with Chris Williams for one of the final roster spots at DT, and now there's a chance both of them end up on the cutting room floor this evening.
The good news here is that the 25-year-old will likely end up on the practice squad if he clears waivers, since he has solid collefe production proved enough to give himself a longer look. But for a player who thought he was pushing his way onto the roster with a strong summer, making a big-ticket trade changes things about how comfortable they feel rostering him.
Between Smith, Harrison, Dorlus, Hand, London, and the newly-acquired Gervon Dexter, the Atlanta Falcons' DT room is wildly revamped. I never had Carlos Allen on any of my 53-man roster predictions, and while Falcons fans want to see him stick around, it feels highly unlikely now.
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