Round One: Who Did The Falcons Pick In The 2017 NFL Draft?

PHILADELPHIA, PA — The Atlanta Falcons were movers in the first round of the NFL Draft Thursday night — trading up from the 31st pick to the 26th pick to bolster their defense.

The Falcons drafted Takkarist McKinley, a defensive end, with the pick they acquired from the Seattle Seahawks.

The Falcons, the defending NFC champions who came tantalizingly close to winning Super Bowl LI in January, will be able to slot McKinley in opposite Vic Beasley, their first-round pick from 2015 who led the NFL in sacks last year.

The Falcons swapped first-round picks with the Seahawks and gave up their third and seventh-round picks to make the move.

The draft continues into the weekend. A live stream of the proceedings can be watched here on the ESPN App.

The Draft

The league's 32 teams will draft for seven rounds, beginning Thursday at 8 p.m. Round 1 will take place Thursday night, Rounds 2-3 will be held on Friday and Rounds 4-7 will wrap things up on Saturday.

The top five picks in Thursday night's first round were:

• Cleveland Browns: Myles Garrett, DE, Texas A&M
• Chicago Bears: Mitchell Trubisky, QB, North Carolina
• San Francisco 49ers: Solomon Thomas, DE, Stanford
• Jacksonville Jaguars: Leonard Fournette, RB, LSU
• Tennessee Titans: Corey Davis, WR, Western Michigan

What Were The Falcons Expectations?

With the nucleus of a Super Bowl team that went 11-5 in the regular season returning, the Falcons were in the unusual position of not having any glaring holes to fill. But there are definitely positions where they could stand to get stronger.

Many pre-draft analysts accurately predicted the Falcons wood look for an edge rusher who would help Beasley put pressure on opposing quarterbacks.

The Falcons also could have looked to use their first pick to bolster the offensive guard position. Veteran lineman Chris Chester retired from the NFL at the end of last season at age 34. They'll have the later rounds, and free agency, with which to deal with those concerns now.

Of course, the team of head coach Dan Quinn and general manager Thomas Dimitroff have shown they won't be shackled by conventional wisdom going into the draft. Most analysts had the Dirty Bird picking an edge rusher last year when they used the No. 17 pick on the University of Florida's Keanu Neal — a safety who was ranked much lower than 17th on most analysts draft boards.

Neal would go on to rack up 106 tackles in a stellar rookie season.

Here's who some of the draft experts were slotting to the Falcons with the 31st pick:

• Mel Kiper Jr. — Jordan Willis, DE, Kansas State
• Chad Reuter, NFL.com — Dion Dawkins, OG, Temple
• The Falcoholic blog — Derek Rivers, DE/LB, Youngstown State
• Mike Mayock — Jabril Peppers, S, Michigan
• Todd McShay — John Ross, WR, Washington

Patch's Justin Heinze contributed to this report.

Photo via AtlantaFalcons.com