Falcons Must 'Get Ahead,' Sign A.J. Terrell to Extension

Coming off of a down season in 2022, is now the perfect time for the Atlanta Falcons to resign cornerback A.J. Terrell to a bargain contract, or should they proceed with caution?

The Atlanta Falcons have a big decision to make regarding whether or not they resign cornerback A.J. Terrell. The 25-year-old is entering the fourth year of his rookie contract and has already opted into his fifth-year option in 2024.

Although technically, the Falcons don't need to sign the corner to a new contract, a recent Bleacher Report article has made a compelling case for why they should sign him sooner rather than later. 

"To put it bluntly, the price of starting-caliber cornerbacks will only go up," Bleacher Report writes. "The league's top cornerbacks, like Jaire Alexander, Marlon Humphrey and Xavien Howard all make more than $18 million annually. That will probably become the floor for Terrell if he has a breakthrough Pro Bowl campaign this season. Getting ahead of the growing CB market and signing Terrell early would be sensible."

In his second season, Terrell was named a member of the All-Pro second team; unfortunately for him, he didn't follow it up in 2022 with an equally impressive season. His number of intercepted passes dropped from three to zero, passes defended fell from 16 to nine, tackles for loss went from three to one, and combined tackles plummeted from 81 to 47.

While Terrell's numbers last season are the worst of his career up to date, that could allow Atlanta the opportunity to sign him at a bargain deal that wouldn't have seemed possible following his first two seasons in the league after being limited to 14 games last year, at the very least a healthy campaign's additional three games would raise all of the numbers that fell in 2022.

This offseason, the Falcons added safety Jessie Bates III and cornerback Jeff Okudah which should immediately bring improvement to Atlanta's secondary, which allowed the eighth-most total passing yards and the tenth-most passing touchdowns last year.

Whether or not the Falcons sign Terrell to an early extension could mean a difference of millions of dollars and potentially impact whether they get to keep the offense's young nucleus of top-ten draft picks together as they enter their prime years beyond this season and their rookie contracts.

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