The NFL offseason can prove to be a blessing and a curse. All 32 teams find ways to improve on their roster from the previous seasons, but the only moves that receive national recognition are the flashy ones: where a team either threw money around for a big fish or if said player plays a skill position.
As we know, the most impactful moves are often the ones nobody talks about, and the Atlanta Falcons are learning that lesson. Between the receiver room, a revamped LB core, and the signing of Tua Tagovailoa, they improved all over the roster with an army low-stakes deals but none of the ones I mentioned fill their biggest weakness.
The Falcons could not kick the football for their lives in 2025. They had a revolving door at kicker between Younghoe Koo, Parker Romo, and Zane Gonzalez. But thankfully they finally have a consistent option at kicker after signing Nick Folk to a three-year, $9 million deal.
The Atlanta Falcons fixed their biggest issue in 2025 by signing Nick Folk
Kickers are people too! Signing a 41-year-old kicker will never be the type of signing to grab headlines in the first offseason under a new regime, but Atlanta badly needed to sign a player like Folk.
Their instability on special teams, especially at the kicker position, lost them multiple games in 2025, but this is a much-needed over-correction from Ian Cunningham and Matt Ryan, who reunited him with new special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman, who coached him in Tennessee.
He may be 41, but Folk is kicking like he took a drink from the Fountain of Youth. He's has drilled over 90% of his field goal attempts in five of his last six seasons and has been over 95% in each of his last three seasons. Statistically speaking, he's been one of the NFL's most reliable kickers in recent years.
But that's not the most impressive part. The 20-year veteran hasn't even missed an extra point since 2023. So signing him for $3 million a year when the two league's highest-paid kickers are going more than double that is one of the best value signings the Dirty Birds have made all offseason.
While Koo has been a shell of the kicker he was a half-decade ago, Folk has only improved with age. Koo hasn't made 90% of his field goals in a season since 2021 and lost Atlanta more games than he won them, while Romo and Gonzalez were also inconsistent: Folk will be in the short-term answer.
The unfortunate truth is they don't have a franchise kicker for the next decade-plus in Nick Folk, but even if he's just here for a few years, he'll finally raise the standard after the kicking volatility we've seen. Honestly, signing Folk is the area in which the Falcons improved the most from 2025 to 2026.
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