The Atlanta Falcons made headlines yesterday when they traded All-Pro safety Jessie Bates III to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a second-round pick in April's NFL Draft and a fifth-round pick in 2028.

The Falcons were busy in the offseason with multi-year contract extensions for their young nucleus of players, but Bates was left without a new deal. Bates turns 30 in February, and his not getting a new contract was a harbinger of things to come by Tuesday's trade deadline.

From the Falcons' point of view, they are 3-6, paying a significant salary to a non-premium position to an aging player who is on the final eight games of his contract.

Despite denials from Kevin Stefanski on Monday, it's definitely a signal that the Falcons are focused on 2027, loading up on draft picks and sitting on the most available salary cap in the NFL.

To Falcons fans, it's a sign of another lost season from a franchise that has had eight-straight losing seasons.

But what did the national media think about the deal? Looking from the outside in, ESPN's Seth Walder, who hated pretty much every move the Falcons made over the last five seasons, loved the move, giving the Falcons a B+ on their return.

Walder rightly points out that keeping Bates and trying to get a comp pick for him wasn't going to work in Atlanta. They have $150 million in available salary cap space, and it's likely they'll sign multiple free agents who would cancel out the Bates loss in the formula.

"If the Falcons were not going to be contenders this season, then they almost had to deal Bates for the most they could get for him," Walder wrote on ESPN. "And while the 3-6 Falcons are still in the race in the lowly NFC South, they had to ask themselves: Is this team really going to make a run in 2026? It seems they answered that question honestly."

The Jaguars may have overpaid on the surface, but if they let Bates walk at the end of the season, they could get up to a third-round draft pick in return via the comp formula. The Jaguars are sitting $20 million over next year's cap already and aren't expected to be players in free agency.

After the trade, the Falcons are sitting on picks No. 10, No. 41, No. 60, and No. 72 in next year's draft. They can address a plethora of needs with those picks, including offensive tackle, wide receiver, and cornerback, among others.

It also gives them another pick to add to a package should they decide to trade up into the top five for a quarterback if they deem that's the move to make.

From all of the one year contracts to the salary cap hoarding, the Falcons indicated they were pointing towards 2027 as a re-tooling year for the franchise.

An excellent return on the Bates trade further indicated their intentions.