Thomas Dimitroff has said that the Atlanta Falcons will be focusing on developing the younger players on the team's roster.

The NFC South champions brought in cornerbacks Desmond Trufant and Robert Alford in the first and second round of this year's Draft.

The general manager told the team's website: "We have a lot of veterans on this football team. We were one of the oldest teams last year.

"We knew we had to make an effort to add some youth to this team and develop the youth, not just bring in the youth and let them sit on the back bench.

"We need to continue to develop them and we need to have the confidence in them to line up and block for [quarterback Matt Ryan], block for our running backs and create the formidable wall that we envision when we brought these guys in."

The Falcons reached the NFC championship game last season.