Falcons are finally trying to plug their remaining holes on defense ahead of the draft

Not a single signing is going to move the needle, but they add up to the team staving off desperation.

Terry Fontenot doesn’t want to have needs. Terry Fontenot likes to drink a sensible amount of water, have filling snacks, and get enough rest to ensure he can go into his average day tackling what he wants to, not what nature compels him to.

Okay, I don’t know if Fontenot’s roster-building philosophy extends into his personal life, but I do know that he abhors a vacuum on this Atlanta Falcons roster. The team’s general manager has made it clear again and again that he would prefer not to go into the draft, much less the season, with any major holes on the roster. When and where he can, Fontenot and this front office will make smaller signings, tinker with depth, and otherwise ensure there are options to avoid the team having to make a panicky pick or signing just to have a living, breathing NFL player on the field at a key position. There’s no other way to say, with a straight face, that you plan to draft the best player available.

I thought we might see a bit of a reversal of that given just how quiet the Falcons have been, with perhaps a low-level signing or two in early April, given the long silence on defense that followed the big spending flurry on offense that kicked off free agents. I thought perhaps the team might tackle some of their outstanding needs after the draft, and they still very well may. But the Falcons are lumbering to life in free agency again in a way that makes me suspect Fontenot will once again

Consider the following:

• The Falcons now have four youngish EDGE options, and have all but confirmed they’ll be adding another in the draft. You could be forgiven for not finding that group inspiring—only Arnold Ebiketie has a single NFL season with six or more sacks, and it was exactly six sacks—but the team now has three players with a full season’s worth of starting experience and a still-intriguing unproven option in DeAngelo Malone. It would be a huge stretch to suggest that Atlanta could be happy here if they missed out on a top edge rusher in this draft class, but they have a group they’d likely feel pretty good about to complement that player.
• They have added Eddie Goldman, potentially addressing a real need on the interior if Goldman suits up. That’s far from a lock given that Goldman has elected to sit out the past two seasons, but given his track record he should at least be a solid rotational option at nose tackle if he does suit up.
• With a stated desire to add to the secondary, they’ve picked up a potential starter in Antonio Hamilton and an upside pickup in Kevin King. Hamilton was just a solid part-time starter a year ago and should challenge Clark Phillips for a starting job outside; King has played everything from corner to safety in his college and NFL careers (although safety very sparingly in the NFL) and like Goldman could be an asset if he’s able to come all the way back after missing the past two seasons.

We’re missing a seemingly inevitable safety signing—the market is still flooded with quality options—and a bit more help up front, preferably with a player like Calais Campbell who offers you some versatility and a really high floor. There’s still three weeks to go, though, and I expect Fontenot and company to land a couple of options that will help sew up remaining needs ahead of the draft. They’ll be affordable and they’ll be exceedingly unlikely to be slam dunk, high-end starters, but those signings now seem like a lock to happen.

Simply put, last season’s offseason spending spree and fortunate hits on players like LaCale London, DeMarcco Hellams, and Nate Landman have drastically improved this team’s depth heading into offseason, and now the team will use their very limited dollars to stock the rest. The team’s high-profile misses with their pursuit of edge rushers like Danielle Hunter and Montez Sweat have hurt and the pass rush is still very much a work in progress, but otherwise the Falcons figure to have the credible outline of a defense with a defensive-minded coaching staff entering the picture, with the draft expected to greatly boost the team’s ceiling.

The questions still outweigh the answers for the 2024 Falcons at this point—will the defense be more than the sum of its parts? Will Kirk Cousins be totally healthy and play at his 2023 level? Will the Falcons be improved enough to overcome what looks like a tougher schedule?—and that’s going to be the reality for Atlanta until they can prove their improvement on the field, if indeed they can. But the team’s multi-year habit of ensuring the roster has some kind of answer for every position will continue, because Fontenot and this front office need it to in order to feel good about their draft approach and their ability to not force a pick lest the season fall apart.