the chiefs became a much better team the second half of the year and that was due to the combination of tyler thigpen and tony gonzalez. with gonzo, matt cassel had a good chance of throwing a decent amount of touchdowns this year. now matt ryan has that opp. he just picked up a quaranteed 8-10 touchdown passes to his tight end. those catches could be the difference in winning and losing. anyone who watched a kansas city game last year knows how dangerous a relationship between a tight end and a qb can be. with one or two stops in the fourth quarter by a bad defense in about 6 games, kc comes close to winning the division. last year, the offense was not kc's problem (once tyler took over), it was the defense. you can't blow one and two touchdown leads every week and blame the offense. the falcons have a lot better defense and more weapons at their disposal. the addition to tony only makes it harder for d coordinators to game plan against. this team will be scary to play against for the next 2 or 3 years to come. was this a high price to pay for a chance to contend for a superbowl for the next three years? only person dumb enough to think that is prisco (and maybe al davis). thank you for everything you did in kc tony. looks like i have to order me a matt cassel jersey now. hopefully i am not mad about it around week 6.

the pick isn't even for this year, it is for next year in 2010.  im surprised prisco maintained your respect even as far as the turner deal, you must not read a lot of his articles.  Tony Gonzalez was a monster last year on a terrible team, he  pushes Atlanta much closer to a the chances of a legitimate super bowl appearance

 UGA_Steve he actually put a players name down (McCoy). The real key here is, that Prisco drew the short straw and doesn't even believe what he wrote. It's a good trade for the Falcons, and it CAN be a good trade for KC.

The second round pick next year may be anywhere from the 30's to 60's, depending on how the Falcons do in 2009. 

To offset this somewhat, the Falcons expect to receive compensatory picks in the 2010 draft for players lost in this years free agency market.  (Foxworth, Brooking, Malloy)  Given the pro-bowl status and history of a couple of those players, the Falcons should receive at least one extra third rounder, and probably a total of 3 extra picks next year before round five. 

So, while we lost a second rounder next year, Dimitroff could easily leverage the extra picks and move up.  Teams are starting to covet these mid-round picks because they can get the players in for cheap with no guaranteed contracts, and still control their rights for a decent amount of time.  Given that, they are becoming more and more popular as trade bait.

I don't neccessarily think Gonzalez is a great fit for the current offense in Atlanta, but he will still have a HUGE impact because defenses will have to respect him.  More importantly, he is middle of the field weapon that Atlanta lacked in 2008.  He is also another weapon inside the red zone, which is one spot Atlanta tended to struggle last year.  The opposing MLB's cheated up to stop the run all year because we had very little over the middle, and this will prevent that. 

This could be a more important addition to the Falcons running game than a blocking tight end might have been.  The Falcons love to run between the tackles, not outside them, and that limits a blocking tight end's responsibility a little.  Now, with Gonzalez in, he will keep the LB's and safeties honest, and if they dare not pay attention to them, Ryan will find him.

Great move by the Falcons bringing in a quality player and more importantly a quality PERSON to help continue building a team of winners.  Just a couple of years ago we had a team of whiners (Horn, Crumpler, Hall) and we dumped all those losers and brought in some quality character guys and look at the change.  We have a coach that players like and therefore once we establish a good year or two together, then free agent vets will WANT to come to Atlanta instead of us having to overpay for them. 

So far, Dimitroff is on a roll, and this will be another gem of a deal, even if Gonzo doesn't put up big numbers.  The impact on the younger players will be huge, so it will benefit the Falcons no matter how well he plays.

Heh.  Meant to say 'I think you mis-understood' in that first sentence.

PJ,

 I don't think you mis-understood what the original poster meant.  He specifically said the Falcons could win the division this year and said that they would land somewhere around the 52 pick.  He then gave an example based off this years draft of who the 52nd pick would be.

So dude, before you criticize a poster, read the article more thoroughly.  He could have been cleaer on the draft part, but I understand where he was going on first read and that was before I saw your post.