There may be more signings to come, but the Falcons have made a fair amount of noise in free agency thus far. It hasn’t been loud noise, mind you, outside of the buzz that comes with signing a quarterback like Tua Tagovailoa and getting back a couple of old fan favorites in Austin Hooper and Olamide Zaccheaus. But they’ve been busy nonetheless, signing 12 new free agents this week, which represents nearly a quarterback of the 53 man roster.
The goal of these signings is pretty obvious: Take a team with major holes and a large number of free agents, a team that only currently has five draft picks and not a ton of cap space, and try to raise the floor rather than the ceiling.
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What do I mean by that? The Falcons are not adding (at least on paper) high-end starters who make the team demonstrably better. What they are adding are the pieces that will ensure they have solid, talented players to take on considerable roles and likely better depth, which will help them weather injuries and unexpected poor performances better than they have the past few years. That’s a modest sort of goal, but if you believe in the high-end talent you already have and your coaching staff, it’s the sort of goal you pursue in your first year for a franchise with the aforementioned limited resources on hand. The Falcons are not shackling themselves to many free agents on long-term deals and figure to have compensatory draft picks and plenty of cap space in 2027, even if incoming extensions for Drake London and maybe Bijan Robinson will eat up some of that space.
It’s a different approach than the Falcons have employed over the past few seasons, one that hews closer to what the Falcons got up to in 2021 and to a lesser extent 2022. In those years, the Falcons recognized the sorry state of the roster and wanted to find budget options who could help them stay afloat, but the team’s core was also aging significantly in a way this team’s core is not. The perceived strength of that core was what led the Falcons to hit free agency and the draft hard in 2023, 2024, and 2025 in a continued effort to push this team over the top; Ian Cunningham and Matt Ryan have fewer illusions about their ability to make this a Super Bowl team in 2026.
You’ll have to take my word for it that I started writing this article before Ian Cunningham specifically said the goal was to “elevate the floor” for this franchise, but it has been my impression since the first raft of signings. But it’s not like this is some blinding insight from my end, either, because the approach was not difficult to understand.
As I wrote earlier this week, we don’t know what this will lead to yet, but it’s probably a team topping out at 9 or 10 wins barring some major surprises. That’s going to be deeply unsatisfying for fans eager to see this team make some real noise in the NFC South, but the division remains winnable and the team is going to set themselves up to significantly overhaul the roster in 2027. A higher floor than an inconsistent, deeply disappointing team crawling to seven or eight wins would be very welcome, regardless.
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