PRO FOOTBALL : After Having Another Strong Draft, Could the Falcons Be Contenders?

When the NFL’s coaches, scouts and owners looked back Monday night over two days and 12 rounds of drafting, they could see that:

--The Atlanta Falcons’ brash leader, Jerry Glanville, who won last year’s draft, won it again this week, making the most of three early picks after trading for cornerback Tim McKyer to pair with Deion Sanders.

--Notre Dame’s Raghib (Rocket) Ismail was so eager to get into the NFL that at one point he was willing to turn down the Toronto Argonauts’ offer of $4.5 million a year if the Dallas Cowboys would pay him $1.4 million a year, plus a deferred $1.4 million a year, for five years. Then the Cowboys turned him down.

--The NFL made it a defense-oriented draft, choosing defensive players with seven of the first nine picks--including the first six.

When there are wide differences of opinion in the draft, as there were this week after Ismail defected, the owners know they can get defensive players cheaper.

With the third pick Sunday, the Falcons passed up Notre Dame cornerback Todd Lyght to take a faster, tougher cornerback from Nebraska, Bruce Pickens.

With another choice in the first round, they got an Ismail-type receiver-runner-kick returner, Mike Pritchard of Colorado.

And they might have made the best second-round pick: Brett Favre, 6-2, 220-pound quarterback from Southern Mississippi, who this year will back up Chris Miller.

“Most days don’t unravel this good for you,” Glanville said. “If Pritchard had been gone, we probably would have gone after (Favre) then.”

“Then” was an hour before the Seattle Seahawks went for San Diego State’s Dan McGwire, the first quarterback drafted.

“We felt like only two wide receivers could help us,” Glanville said. “And the other guy went to a foreign country.”

The one who didn’t is Alvin Harper of Tennessee, who went to the Dallas Cowboys.

McKyer, the Falcons’ new defensive back from San Francisco by way of Miami, is as brash as Glanville, or Deion Sanders. The only NFL coach who could get along with him, if barely, was Bill Walsh. The others, George Seifert, Walsh’s 49er successor, and Don Shula of the Dolphins each gave up on him after six months.

“(McKyer and Sanders) will be a great combination,” McKyer said. “Show Time and Prime Time. Batman and Robin.”

Last April, Glanville traded the rights to Jeff George for two starters, Andre Rison and Chris Hinton, plus a first draft choice, then landed three starters in the 1990 draft--linebacker Darion Conner, nose tackle Tory Epps and a running back who was injured much of last year, Steve Broussard.

Are the Falcons a division contender at last? Maybe.

At Ismail’s request, Team Rocket--his board of advisers--kept trying to get him into the NFL until the last hope was gone, according to team spokesmen.

The last hope was Dallas owner Jerry Jones, who fielded the advisers’ last proposal Friday night after getting the top pick in a trade with the New England Patriots.

It was Dallas Coach Jimmy Johnson who pushed Jones into the trade.

The Patriots rejected a $15.5-million, five-year Rocket package, whereupon Ismail’s attorney, Jon Edwards of San Francisco, clipped off $1 million and offered him to the Cowboys for five years for $14.5 million.

Half of that would have been deferred for five years, Edwards said.

But because the NFL has been Ismail’s lifetime goal, he said he would take Dallas’ $7.25 million payable in 1991-95--or $1.4 million a year--plus $7.25 million more payable in annual installments in 1996-2000.

“Plus interest,” Edwards said.

When Jones said a guaranteed $14.5 million was much too much, Ismail accepted the Argonauts’ guaranteed $18.2 million for only four years, or $4.5 million a year.

“With a shot at $26.2 million,” Toronto owner Bruce McNall said.

For one player.

Some of the teams drafting defensive players early were worrying about their defenses this week, no doubt. And some, no doubt, were saving money.

Their reasoning: In a year when there’s no consensus on the comparative skills of the talent available, a questionable defensive lineman is as likely to make good, perhaps, as a questionable quarterback. And it will be cheaper to find out.

Thus with the No. 6 pick in the first round, the Phoenix Cardinals, who have never been known as big spenders, took a high school prospect who has yet to attend his first college class, Eric Swann.

At the instant the Cardinals chose Swann, who is expected to sign the first contract they hand him, every quarterback in the class of 1991 was still on the board. So was every wide receiver in a good year for wide receivers.

And so was every offensive lineman.

One of the Cardinals’ great needs is in the offensive line and, had they guessed right, either of Tennessee’s two tackles, Antone Davis or Charles McRae, or USC’s Pat Harlow, would have been of more assistance, probably, than Swann.

And would have cost more.

Asked about his assets, Swann said, “I go 300 pounds, and I run the 40 in 5.0. How many defensive lineman can do that?”

But the relevant question is: Can he play football?

NFL Notes

In Round 7 Monday, the Cardinals drafted another name player, Ivory Lee Brown of Arkansas Pine Bluff. . . . Including Raghib Ismail, 29 undergraduates were selected in the two-day draft. . . . One way of looking at the Raiders’ performance this week: They got three No. 1 picks: Ismail in the fourth round, Todd Marinovich in the first and Nick Bell in the second. Had he stayed in the U.S., Ismail would have been a No. 1, Marinovich is, and Bell probably should be. A 250-pound tailback from Iowa, Bell somehow slipped through the first round.

The Buffalo Bills, who on Sunday drafted Phil Hansen, a Division II player from North Dakota State, kept their small-college hopes alive Monday, taking players from Pittsburg State in Kansas, Clark Atlanta University and Anderson University. . . . The Denver Broncos went in the other direction, drafting such overlooked 1991 college stars as Washington running back Greg Lewis and Virginia quarterback Shawn Moore.

Before the fourth round was over Sunday, the Dallas Cowboys had drafted 10 players, and the New Orleans Saints had drafted one, wide receiver Wesley Carroll of Miami of Florida, a second rounder.

RAIDER, RAM DRAFT PICKS

RAIDERS

Round Player Position School 1 Todd Marinovich Quarterback USC 2 Nick Bell Running Back Iowa 3 No Pick 4 Raghib Ismail Wide Receiver Notre Dame 5 No Pick 6 Nolan Harrison Defensive Tackle Indiana 7 No Pick 8 Brian Jones Linebacker Texas 8 Todd Woulard Linebacker Alabama A&M; 9 Tahaun Lewis Defensive Back Nebraska 10 Andrews Glover Tight End Grambling 11 No Pick 12 Dennis Johnson Wide Receiver Winston-Salem

RAMS

Round Player Position School 1 Todd Lyght Defensive Back Notre Dame 2 Roman Phifer Linebacker UCLA 3 No Pick 4 Robert Bailey Defensive Back Miami 5 Robert Young Defensive Lineman Mississippi State 6 Neal Fort Tackle Brigham Young 7 Tyron Shelton Running Back William & Mary 8 Pat Tyrance Linebacker Nebraska 9 Jeff Fields Defensive Lineman Arkansas State 10 No Pick 11 Terry Crews Linebacker Western Michigan 12 Jeff Pahukoa Tackle Washington State 12 Ernie Thompson Running Back Indiana