[vincesanity82]

Steve Wyche of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that the Falcons intend to pass on the upcoming supplemental draft.

The entire report is as follows (don't blink): "The Falcons have no plans to participate in Thursday's NFL supplemental draft, the team said Monday. If a team participates in the supplemental draft it must forfeit a corresponding pick from the 2008 NFL entry draft."

And since the team has said it, we should believe it, right? Um, no. The supplemental draft is the ultimate NFL poker game, in which a team must decide on a round-by-round basis whether to put one of their 2008 draft picks on the line in order to get a given player.

The order of the draft, which is set in advance, is the most critical aspect of this exercise. (The order is determined via a weighted lottery.) If there's a team that is believed to be very interested in a player and that team has a high spot in each round round, then another team will need to move a round early in order to get the guy. This specific dynamic contributed to the decision of the Texans to select running back Tony Hollings in round two of the 2003 supplemental draft, since the Cowboys were expected to pick Hollings in round three, and the Cowboys had a higher spot than the Texans.

The fact that every pick used in the supplemental draft is one less pick that can be used in the next common draft means that it's generally a good thing for the rest of the league for one of the teams uses a pick now, since it pushes the rest of the field down a spot in April when the pick used in July otherwise would have been exercised. So, strategically, there's no benefit for the Falcons to announce publicly that they're not interested -- unless the statement was merely a superficial effort to dissuade someone from grabbing a guy like tackle Jared Gaither before the Falcons can nab him.

Of course, there's a chance that the Falcons are thinking that if they say they're not interested in anyone then other teams will think that they are interested when in reality they really aren't. But the best course, in our view, is to remain vaguely non-committal, by saying something like, "We are happy with the composition of our roster, but we do not rule out exercising a selection."

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