Despite being in one of the weakest divisions in the NFL, mostly every season, the Atlanta Falcons have not had a winning record since 2017, and have oddly won seven games in five of those years, finishing 7-10 in three straight years from 2021-2023.
The Falcons have boasted some quality rosters in recent years, but below-average head coaching and not having a viable quarterback have put this franchise in another tough spot. The team has again made some notable changes, bringing in Kevin Stefanski to try to right the ship and signing Tua Tagovailoa to presumably compete with Michael Penix Jr. for the starting quarterback job.
While it's possible that one of Penix or Tagovailoa could be competent in 2026, average feels like the ceiling for both players, which would again put the team in quarterback uncertainty. However, the 2027 NFL Draft, while nearly a year away, could provide the franchise an ideal opportunity to fix the most important position in all of sports once and for all.
Atlanta Falcons take Notre Dame QB CJ Carr in way-too-early 2027 NFL Mock Draft
For Bleacher Report, Brent Sobleski used the fifth overall pick in a top-5 mock draft on CJ Carr, where he would head to the Falcons:
"The Atlanta Falcons find themselves in a predicament of their own making, because the previous regime tried to outsmart the rest of the league only to see their quarterback succession plan implode.
Now, the organization sits at a crossroads where a recent top-10 pick may not even start this fall, while hoping another first-round disappointment can revitalize his career.
The Falcons are loaded with offensive skill talent and have been for multiple years. Kirk Cousins wasn't the stabilizing force the team thought the veteran could be, and Michael Penix Jr. remains the same quarterback he was at Washington.
With Penix and the offseason pickup of Tua Tagovailoa, the team isn't tied to either for the long term. If one works out, that's great. If the team finds itself among the Top 10 for the fifth time in the last seven years, it will be searching for a long-term answer at the game's most important position. The Falcons will do so with the intention of pairing the incoming QB with head coach/offensive play-caller Kevin Stefanski.
Carr may be coming off his first season as a starter, but he already showed that he can efficiently operate an offense and keep it ahead of the chains. He's also a natural thrower, who spins the ball well, even when pressured.
"No returning QB was blitzed at a higher rate in 2025 than Carr (36.7 percent of dropbacks)," Hale noted. "It didn't seem to bother him, as he completed 65 percent of his throws with 14 touchdowns and two picks when facing five or more pass-rushers. Still, defenses had few other options. When they didn't blitz, Carr averaged 9.4 yards per dropback, the best rate in the country."
For Carr, his biggest obstacle is proving he can operate at a relatively high level without having the nation's top two running backs in the same backfield. His ability to carry Notre Dame's offense to some degree will only inflate his draft value."
CJ Carr could soon check all the boxes of a future franchise quarterback in the NFL. At 6-3 and 210 pounds, the size is there. He was efficient against the blitz in 2025 for the Fighting Irish, and was also quite efficient overall, throwing 24 touchdown passes against just six interceptions.
Carr is definitely more of a timing-based passer. He's not really someone who is going to escape the pocket and make a ton of plays, but that's not the first job of an NFL quarterback. The timing, decision-making, and everything that needs to be present in a pocket passer is present with Carr.
Sure, a lot could change between now and the NFL Draft, but the idea of taking Carr at pick five could bring a ton of success to the franchise. The one issue that could prevent the Falcons from being in this type of position is, for example, if Tagovailoa wins the starting job and is good enough for the Falcons to again hover around that 7-8 win total.
Atlanta would then likely be picking just on the outside of where the best quarterbacks would go in Round 1, which would be far from ideal. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing that the team brought in another quarterback, but it could end up hurting them when 2027 rolls around.
However, if the Falcons are bad enough to land someone like Carr, the future success would be worth enduring another tough season this year.
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