Raheem Morris raves about James Pearce Jr.

The Falcons shocked the NFL world again on draft night when they pulled the trigger on a trade up the board for James Pearce Jr., sending their 2026 first-round selection to the Rams in the deal.

It was met with a lot of criticism from the national media, but at least some see the Falcons’ vision. They have been the worst team at sacking the quarterback for over a decade, and they addressed their biggest need aggressively by drafting not one but two pass rushers in the first round.

James Pearce Jr. could also turn out to be one of the bigger steals of the entire draft. This time last year, he was getting ready for his final season with the Tennessee Volunteers and was discussed as potentially the #1 overall pick. Then came the pre-draft concerns regarding his love for the game, and somehow, he was still available late in the first round.

The homework the Falcons did on James Pearce has been well-documented, as they really wanted to peel back the curtain behind these so-called “character concerns.”

“In the end, they agreed, instead, to meet at the house that Pearce had bought his mother in the area, and then bring him to Atlanta for a 30 visit thereafter, where he’d spend extensive one-on-time with Fontenot, coach Raheem Morris and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich,” Albert Breer wrote for Sports Illustrated after the draft.

“But the whole experience helped the Falcons complete the picture on a player who was widely seen as a character risk—someone who was rumored to have been divisive and difficult within the Tennessee program. In the end, after sitting down with Pearce and a slew of people from his past, the team saw a guy who loves football, is hyper-competitive and has smarts, and the Falcons were willing to bet on Morris’s program to help him grow up.”

The Falcons clearly felt more than comfortable following their extensive homework on Pearce, leaving their meetings feeling like he was a guy they needed to get in their building. They made that happen on draft night, and Raheem Morris seems to be loving the decision.