The Atlanta Falcons are projected to receive no compensatory draft picks in 2017

There are teams in the NFL who embrace the idea that you should attempt to land as many draft picks as possible, and one of the best ways to do that is to pick up compensatory picks. The Baltimore Ravens are a good example of that, and they’ve built a consistently competitive team in part thanks to that approach.

The Atlanta Falcons are not one of those teams, to say the least. They’ve rarely had more than one compensatory pick in recent years, and they’re once again projected to wind up with zero, per Over the Cap.

The formula to determine compensatory free agents is not known exactly, but it is based on free agents you lose versus free agents you sign. Atlanta a year ago signed Matt Schaub, Mohamed Sanu, Aldrick Robinson, Alex Mack, Derrick Shelby, LaRoy Reynolds, Sean Weatherspoon, and a handful of others, while losing or waiving Paul Soliai, Roddy White, and... well, not many others. There was no real reason to think, given that level of activity, that they’d wind up landing any picks.

The good news is that the Falcons have enough draft capital and free agent money to add impactful players to an already strong roster, so the lack of compensatory picks shouldn’t be overly damaging. I’d still love to see them end up with extra selections one of these years, and with no real reason to anticipate another huge round of free agent signings, perhaps that year will be 2018.