{"id":643018,"date":"2026-05-01T15:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643018\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T15:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T15:48:11","slug":"nfl-analyst-pinpoints-falcons-day-3-pick-who-could-end-up-starting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/643018\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL analyst pinpoints Falcons Day 3 pick who could end up starting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Generally speaking, NFL teams don’t want to have to rely on rookies to play a lot of snaps in their first year in the league. Sometimes they come in and make a splash right away – Atlanta’s stellar class of 2016<\/a> comes to mind – but most rookies need time to get adjusted to the speed of the pro game.<\/p>\n

There are exceptions to the rule, though – and the Falcons<\/a> may have one of them on their roster. In the fourth round<\/a> they picked Oklahoma linebacker Kendal Daniels<\/a>, who may end up competing for starting snaps according to NFL.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

“Atlanta lost leading tackler\u00a0Kaden Elliss\u00a0in free agency, opening the door for Daniels to compete against former Texans<\/a> LB\u00a0Christian Harris. Like the Falcons\u2019\u00a0Divine Deablo, Daniels is a former safety who transitioned to linebacker. Daniels is not the fastest \u2018backer in the class, but he’s a terror as a downhill player who stops ball-carriers.”<\/p>\n

Daniels (6-foot-5, 242 pounds) has more than just plus size for the position. Lance Zierlein’s scouting report<\/a> applauds his length, range and speed. On the downside, he’s still learning to play linebacker after serving as a safety in college and needs to work trusting his instincts.<\/p>\n

For now, Harris and Deablo should be penciled in as Week 1 starters – but if they struggle or get injured Daniels could end up playing significant snaps in Year 1.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

No matter how it goes in 2025, Daniels should be considered a long-term favorite to start at the second level.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: 2026 NFL Draft: Falcons Kendal Daniels could compete for starter snaps<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Generally speaking, NFL teams don’t want to have to rely on rookies to play a lot of snaps…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,23169,311298,290307,593,85],"class_list":["post-643018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-falcons","tag-kendal-daniels","tag-lance-zierlein","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}