Many casual observers reacted to the new of the Julio Jones trade with surprise, especially since there had been a report from ESPN that the Falcons had a 2022 first-round pick on the table.
The report was even repeated by the Falcons, who presumably would know whether it was or wasn’t true. Apparently, it wasn’t.
Here’s Albert Breer of SI.com on the subject: “No first-round pick was ever offered. And really, only once did a future 1 come up, and that was as part of a pick swap -- so it wouldn’t have been a clean 1 -- and never got to the point where the team in question actually made an offer.”
That’s how it had been explained to us in the aftermath of the report. If the Falcons were going to get the first-round pick that, for months, owner Arthur Blank had coveted, the Falcons would have had to attach a draft pick to the package, possibly up to a second-rounder.
It never got to that point, from the standpoint of an actual offer. And, per Breer, no one ever offered a first-round pick.
To the extent that the Falcons were pushing the notion that a first-round pick was on the table in the hopes of getting a first-round pick, they’re now paying the price from a P.R. perspective. Some fans who saw the report and believed it are now upset that the Falcons didn’t get a first-round pick for Jones. The fact is that they were never going to get a first-round pick for Jones, and that they weren’t offered one.
If they were, they would have accepted it long before yesterday.