Sunday evening wrapped up the Falcons 2013 draft and the NFC South champs from last season walked away with eight new players, including first-round draft pick Desmond Trufant.
The Falcons traded up in the first round from No. 30 to No. 22 to snag Trufant, a corner with 4.3 speed that Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff said had No. 1 corner ability. With their pick in the second round, the Falcons took another cornerback, Southeastern Louisiana's Robert Alford, a player with return skills to go with his 4.3 speed. Without a third-round pick, lost in the trade up for Trufant, the Falcons waited until Saturday to get back into the action, selecting two players in the fourth round, Clemson's Malliciah Goodman and Stanford's Levine Toilolo. In the fifth round, the Falcons traded up once again to select TCU defensive end Stansly Maponga.
Their final picks came in the seventh round and they continued with the defensive theme and selected two defensive backs before moving to offense with a quarterback selection. With the 243rd and 244th picks in the seventh round, Dimitroff and the Falcons selected UCF safety Kemal Ishmael and Notre Dame safety Zeke Motta. With the final pick of their draft, at 249, Duke's record-setting quarterback Sean Renfree was taken.
"Our focus was going to be on defense, as you see it was in the entire draft," Dimitroff said. "We pulled off six defensive players and two offensive players and we traded away a few. We're really excited about what we pulled off in this draft. We feel like we accomplished a lot of our needs. We got down and dirty and got after some people. We think we've acquired a number of people through the draft that are going to help us."
2013 Atlanta Falcons Draft Quick Facts
- Three of the eight players drafted played in the 2013 Senior Bowl (Trufant, Alford, Goodman)
- 2013 marks the first draft in six years that Dimitroff didn't draft a player from the SEC
- Dimitroff drafted two players from the ACC (Goodman & Refree), raising the total number of players Dimitroff's drafted from the ACC to seven.
DESMOND TRUFANT RELATED LINKS
An introduction to Trufant * At his introductory press conference, Trufant said he's ready to work * View images from Trufant's career at Washington * View images from Trufant's arrival in Atlanta * View images from Trufant's introductory press conference
ROBERT ALFORD RELATED LINKS
MALLICIAH GOODMAN RELATED LINKS
LEVINE TOILOLO RELATED LINKS
STANSLY MAPONGA RELATED LINKS
KEMAL ISHMAEL RELATED LINKS
ZEKE MOTTA RELATED LINKS
