It’s a common refrain during NFL free agency: the best signings usually don’t happen during the first week. Despite teams throwing a tremendous amount of money around in free agency, the “splash” signings rarely seem to work out as well as hoped. That’s not to say they aren’t important—certainly, some do wind up working out perfectly, like the Falcons’ signing of C Alex Mack in 2016. But the majority either fizzle out or end up as fairly bad deals for one side or the other.
In 2019, the Falcons didn’t really have a “splash” signing.