In an offseason full of tons of organizational changes, the Atlanta Falcons would have loved to avoid any further distractions and negative PR. That went out the window on Saturday, when James Pearce Jr. was arrested on domestic violence charges of aggravated battery and aggravated stalking.

Pearce was a first round draft pick for Atlanta last April, and had an outstanding rookie season, tallying 10.5 sacks. His impressive year sparked debate about his slide in the 2025 NFL Draft. At one point during his college career at Tennessee, Pearce was considered a potential Top 5 pick. But he fell to pick No. 26 for the Falcons, in a trade-up that cost Atlanta quite a bit of draft capital.

James Pearce Jr. fell farther than expected in 2025 NFL Draft, just like Shedeur Sanders

Pearce’s draft night slide wasn’t talked about as much as Shedeur Sanders‘. Of course, Pearce still went in the first round. Sanders fell all the way to the fifth round. But with Pearce’s newfound character concerns being revealed, it has sparked debate once again about why Sanders fell so far in the draft.

Related:

Sanders has never done anything remotely close to what Pearce did to get arrested. In fact, Sanders has been an upstanding citizen and done all of the right things. While his confident personality rubbed some people the wrong way, it’s fair to wonder whether something else happened with Sanders to cause him to fall so much.

There had to have been behind-the-scenes reasons for Sanders being passed over several times by every NFL team. He certainly had his on-field flaws, but he was more productive and showed more promise than many players picked before him.

There’s the theory that the NFL wanted to stick it to Sanders and his father, Deion Sanders, for being so confident that he was going to be a Top 2 pick in the draft. That seems far-fetched, but we may never know what truly happened.