Terry Fontenot made five draft-day trades in his five seasons in Atlanta, four of them jumping up and one trading back. In those five trades, Fontenot never picked up a single selection, and out of the eight players he acquired making those trades, only James Pearce Jr. (whose future with the team in uncertain), Matthew Bergeron, and Xavier Watts remain with the Falcons.

The approach, in other words, did not bear much fruit. It also cost the Falcons in terms of their ability to build depth, and in 2026, their first round selection for a new regime. It is an approach that new general manager Ian Cunningham seems unlikely to repeat, at least based on his words to this point. What we don’t know, of course, is who he plans to take and whether he’ll look to trade back to pick up more solutions.

Either way, though, this Falcons team seems hyper-conscious of not mortgaging their potentially brighter future for a chance to lift the gloom on the present. That has been reflected in all of their one-year pacts this offseason, and if they’re smart, it will be reflected in their draft.

ESPN’s Benjamin Solak certainly thinks that’s the way to go. In a breakdown of how all 32 teams can nail their draft classes, Solak urged the Falcons to be patient, try to add to their pass rush, and avoid the trade ups that have defined their draft strategy for eons. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

The Falcons are using 2026 as a QB tryout year, so they should be interested in accumulating 2027 draft capital for a potential trade-up package. It’s hard to trade back when you’re already missing your first-round pick, but certainly don’t use any 2027 capital to trade up.

Bottom line: Beef up the pass rush and plug the remaining offensive gaps if the board falls your way. Don’t borrow from 2027.

You should read the full article for specific players—there are worthwhile suggestions in there—but I highlighted this writeup because it aligns with both my philosophy for this draft and my expectations for how it will go. The Falcons have convinced themselves for years that they were quite close to winning big if they made this trade or made that signing, to the point where it obscured underlying problems with the roster. The Falcons in 2026 seem set to determine what they actually have, which short-term signings might work out, and try to build up their resources ahead of a critical 2027 draft and free agent class. That is the right approach, given their holes and quarterback questions in particular, and it would be disappointing in the extreme to buck it.

This is not to suggest that it will be the right move every year, but it was the right one for the moment. The team would have likely loved to give Kevin Stefanski, who is tired of losing, and Ian Cunningham, who is fresh off a triumph in Chicago, a chance to make a real playoff push in year one with some splash signings. But while they likely could’ve found a way to justify that, an honest accounting of the roster and the time needed to evaluate it meant they were more comfortable looking to the future and seeing how far their stable of stars and a new approach could carry them in 2026. We’ll see how far it takes them, but I do know that going into 2027 with a relatively clean cap sheet and a full complement of picks will make things much, much easier going forward.