The offense accounts for more than 50 percent of the Falcons cap space due to the big contracts for Matt Ryan and Julio Jones (both of whom are deserving of their money). On defense, giving Grady Jarrett the franchise tag ($15.2 million) and the $13.9 million owed to Desmond Trufant are the biggest hits to the defense.
Coming into free agency, the Atlanta Falcons had a little bit of money to spend after letting some of the key pieces of the team walk away. They didn’t have the cap space like some of these others to make the big time splashes that most of the Falcon faithful are waiting on.