So how about the Falcon's needs?

A couple big factors to take into consideration is that Quinn has moved us back to a 4-3 base defense and Shannahan runs a zone-blocking scheme for his OL's, which is a big change for us. So lets examine position by position and assess weaknesses.

Pass Rush:
DE: O'Brien Schofield, Adrian Clayborn, Biermann, Matthews, Maponga, and Goodman
OLB: Brooks Reed, Justin Durant, Shembo, Stupar
- I'd call DE a very weak position and a top priority. OLB is pretty solid with the Reed and Durant pickups. Reed is best friend's with JJ Watt and has been training with him for two straight seasons. Hopefully it has helped him. And Durant was on his way to a probowl season at OLB last year until he got injured. He is a good replacement for Spoon. Adrian Clayborn is apparently a replacement for Osi. Who knows what he'll bring other than DE depth.

DT: Soliai, Babineaux, Jackson, Hageman
- Soliai is a pure 3-4 NT, but we're stuck with his big contract for a while. He played like shite last year and so did Tyson Jackson. Babs was his usual inconsistent self, really good at some times and really average at others. And Hageman came on strong in the last 3 games. He's the future at DT for us and he's going to be a good one. The guy might have a 2-cent head, but he's an athletic freak of nature and will be good once he gets it. We can live for a while with this 4-man rotation inside though.

ILB: Worrilow, Bartu, Bradford, and Spruill
- Another weak position. Worrilow gets a lot of tackles, but he actually graded out horrible by PFF. And Bartu kept moving from OLB to ILB and back and forth all season. Spruill is coming off an ACL tear and Bradford is simply depth. They may move Shembo inside to help here but not sure about that.

Secondary:
CB: Trufant, Alford, Mabin, Allen, and Bishop.
- There's also mention that Quinn wants to move Dez Southward to CB and make Alford the Nickel. This would be fine by me since Southward is tall and can run a 4.3x 40. Maybe Quinn wants to turn him into a Richard Sherman type CB. Bishop is 6'1 210 also and can run, so he has potential as well. We're set at CB IMO.

SS: Moore, Ishmael
- And that's it. And Willie Mo is always injured. Ishmael stepped up and played great here last year though too.

FS: Godfrey, Southward
- For some reason, we didn't re-sign Lowery even though he was by far our best safety. This is obviously a priority position of need. Especially if Southward might move to CB.

Offensive Line: Matthews, Baker, Schraeder, Stone, Hawley, Asamoah, Holmes, Konz, Person, Gunn
- Matthews is obviously our LT and Schraeder actually graded out as a top-5 RT last year. Asamoah is the RG and Stone graded out strong at C when Hawley went down. So that leaves Baker, Konz, Person, Gunn, and Holmes as depth, which is scary. Baker I believe might be released after June 1st. If not, he may fill the void at LG where Blalock use to be. But if that's not the case, then I suspect OG is a high priority too. We need to lock down LG to complete this line.
- Good news on OL, however, is that virtually all of our guys have played in a zone-blocking system before. In fact, most of them did in college and know it quite well.

RB: Freeman and Smith
- That's it. Seriously, that's our RB's. And Smith is coming off a broken leg. If this doesn't scream "need" then I don't know what does. Now this said, with the switch to a zone-blocking scheme, this may not necessarily be something we draft in our first 4 picks. Look what Shannahan did with Alfred Morris. But, this is absolutely a priority. We may even draft two RB's or look for another one in FA at some point.

WR: Julio, Roddy, Hester, Hankerson, Weems, Martino, and Reedy
- They picked up Hankerson to replace Davis, and they are really high on Reedy to replace Douglas in the slot. We're pretty set at WR, especially after who we picked up in FA at TE. Our receiving corps looks good. WR isn't a priority, but we may pick up one in the late rounds.

TE: Toilolo, Moeaki, and Tamme
- We're set here for a while. Clearly we don't plan to draft a TE now.

So, with all this, here is what appears to be our needs in order of importance:

RB, DE, OG, S, ILB, DT, WR

No way though do we draft a RB at #8 when there's four pass rushers with top-10 draft grades. Especially not since the trend has been to take a RB in mid rounds find success. Which is exactly what Shannahan has already proven he can do.

As a result, I am very confident we go pass rusher at #8, with a particular eye on Vic Beasley. Williams is more a 4-3 DT or 3-4 DE and will certainly be gone, but I wouldn't necessarily classify him as a pass rusher. Fowler, who is a traditional 4-3 DE, will likely be gone too. But as my earlier analysis shows, not once in the past 10 years have more than two pass rushers been taken in the top-8. And if this holds true again, then Vic Beasley should still be there for us at #8.

This post was edited on 4/16/15 at 1:11 pm