Under Thomas Dimitroff, the Falcons front office was good for at least one free agent splash per offseason unless money was very tight, in which case you could expect a lot of low grade signings for unexciting starters and depth. Sometimes those splashes worked out (Dontari Poe! Alex Mack!) and sometimes they didn’t (Ray Edwards! Dante Fowler Jr. so far! Tyson Jackson?), but if the Falcons had the cash you could bet on them swinging for big free agents at key positions of need.
The mixed track record in free agency occasionally pushed Atlanta to new heights (Mack is a great example of this, as is Michael Turner) but often those players fell short of expectations, which in turn became one of the things that doomed Dimitroff in Atlanta.