FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- The Falcons traded the No. 34, No. 48 and No. 103 overall selections to the Washington Redskins Saturday afternoon for three picks (No. 21, No. 84 and No. 154).
With the 21st pick the Falcons selected USC tackle Sam Baker. As of the time of the trade, the Falcons have one second-round pick, three third-round picks and two fifth-round picks.
“We started looking at the draft order and we started analyzing which teams we exactly thought might be interested in left tackles," General Manager Thomas Dimitroff said. "We knew there would be a run on tackles at the outset of this Draft. So as we started to really hone in on the teams that needed the tackle, we contacted Washington and they were interested. They had contacted me yesterday with the possibility they might be interested in moving out of the 20s. We figured in going up to where we did at No. 21 and we were being aggressive with it. We also knew that there were three other teams behind us and we saw that there were three teams there, at least one in particular that ended up taking a tackle so we knew we needed to be aggressive in going up to get Sam Baker.”
It's the first Draft-day trade for the Falcons since last season.
The Falcons moved from No. 44 to No. 41 and sent one of their three fourth-round selections (No. 121) which was originally acquired from Denver to the Vikings. The team selected Chris Houston with the 41st selection.
