The previous administration in Atlanta left the current administration wanting. The Falcons head into the 2026 NFL Draft with just five picks to rebuild a team that hasn’t made the postseason since 2017.
New manager Ian Cunningham is not fussing about the position but wants to add more if the opportunity arises.
“For us, it’s one of those things where we have to go into this mindset that we only have five picks. That’s a worst-case scenario,” Cunningham said via the team’s official website. “If we come out of it with just five picks, we come out of it with just five picks. We’re already looking at different ways to possibly produce more. But if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”
The Falcons now have picks in the second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh rounds. Atlanta received no compensatory picks.
The fired brass traded this year’s first-round pick to the Los Angeles Rams for the right to draft James Pearce Jr., who has recently been charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor. They sent their fifth rounder to Philadelphia last year to select Xavier Watts third overall. Fourth- and sixth-round picks are also down after last month’s Sydney Brown trade.
The lack of a draft led to Cunningham and crew being active in free agency, especially the second and third waves, signing 17 new players. Most of them were from depth/rotation to make up for the lack of picks to use on depth this season.
“That’s the hand we were dealt,” Cunningham said, “but we’re going to try to find ways going forward to create more opportunities, more swings on the board moving forward.”
Cunningham cannot change the past. He signed in Atlanta, knowing the draft capital had been depleted. If there is an opportunity to move down the board during the draft to regain more picks, the GM would jump at the chance. Going forward, he wants to make sure Atlanta isn’t in a five-draft pick position and prefers to build through the draft rather than free agency.
“You don’t want to live in that space if you move on,” Cunningham said of the Falcons’ free agency activity. “You want your draft picks to eventually replace those things, but this was a year where we had to attack it that way.”