Falcons trade with Seahawks to add former Division II star

Billy Heyen

Falcons trade with Seahawks to add former Division II star image

The Atlanta Falcons found a way to bulk up even on the NFL's roster cutdown day.

They swung a trade with the Seattle Seahawks on Tuesday to pick up a talented offensive lineman who never even played Division I football.

The player coming to Atlanta is Michael Jerrell. He plied his craft collegiately at Division II University of Findlay, which is in northwest Ohio.

NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported that a conditional 2027 seventh-round pick is going to the Seahawks in return.

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Jerrell is a 6-foot-5, 309-pound offensive tackle.

The Seahawks drafted him in the sixth round of the 2024 draft.

As a rookie, Jerrell played in 10 games for Seattle. Three of those were starts.

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The Seahawks were likely looking at the prospect of cutting Jerrell with the roster crunch, thus creating the possibility of him moving in a trade.

The Falcons clearly wanted another offensive lineman and found that in Jerrell. The conditional pick going in return is a miniscule price to pay for a 26-year old lineman who has NFL starts under his belt.

Atlanta could reap the benefits here of an under-the-radar move, or it could just wind up being a trade that's soon forgotten about. It was worth taking this shot for the Falcons, though.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle