There have been plenty of additions to cornerback, but it’s not clear that it will transform the starting lineup.
If the safety position barely changed this offseason, the cornerback position actually changed quite a bit for the Atlanta Falcons. Our favorite team added multiple undrafted free agents and signed a handful of veterans for competition, aiming to craft better depth for 2024.
What isn’t clear is whether they’ve changed the starting lineup at all. Down the stretch, the Falcons were playing A.J. Terrell, Clark Phillips, and Mike Hughes/Dee Alford, and all four players are credibly in the mix for starting jobs again this coming season. It’s possible the Falcons, who had Jeff Okudah and Tre Flowers as well last year, have simply swapped out players to get their hands on depth the coaching staff is more comfortable with.
But there’s at least the chance that a couple of spots are up for grabs, and there’s certainly going to be real competition for those spots down the depth chart either way. Let’s see how cornerback has changed in the past few months.
Top option: Still A.J. Terrell
We haven’t seen any reports of an imminent Terrell extension, though I’d anticipate one is coming, both to free up cap space and to lock up the talented young cornerback. There is no danger of him losing his grip on the team’s top spot, either way.
Terrell suffers from what I would call Desmond Trufant Syndrome, where his consistent fine work as a cornerback is eroded in the minds of many fans by the high-profile mistakes, and his lack of turnovers and big plays in turn further damages his standing. That’s true of every cornerback, but not every cornerback is underrated as a direct result of that, the way Terrell sometimes is. Still not even 26 years old, Terrell cut his missed tackle rate, his passer rating against, and cut his number of touchdowns allowed by more than half, putting together a season that could be called good at worst on balance.
The problem for Terrell last year was that he allowed a handful of truly brutal long receptions—I’m not counting the DeAndre Hopkins obvious offensive pass interference—and was penalized a career-high seven times. He also saw his number of pass deflections fall and posted zero interceptions for the second straight season, meaning he wasn’t posting big plays to make up for the big lapses. The on-balance work was good—he’s a fairly consistent asset in coverage and against the run—but you’d like to see him cut down on the mistakes and force some turnovers in 2024. Perhaps the Falcons want to let him play out the string and see how fares this year, but that risks having to shell out a much bigger contract in the 2025 offseason.
Terrell has plenty to prove, in other words, but he’s not competing for anything. The uncertainty is down the depth chart.
Competition: Veterans added
Everything beyond Terrell is beyond unsettled. The favorites right now for the starting job opposite Terrell and the nickel cornerback job would probably be Clark Phillips and Dee Alford, with Mike Hughes in the mix with Alford and Anthony Johnson, Antonio Hamilton, and Kevin King all trying to steal the job away from Phillips.
Phillips, Alford, and Hughes are the incumbents. We saw exciting glimpses of Phillips’ talent in 2023, with some bone-rattling big hits, aggressive play, and fine coverage instincts that should give him the inside track to the starting job opposite Terrell if he can continue to build on them. Alford was a real asset much of the year as a feisty, tough nickel cornerback with the requisite physicality to play the position well, and his late benching for Hughes seemingly had more to do with (or should have had more to do with) his growing role on special teams than anything else. Hughes is probably best as a versatile reserve who can play inside or outside and is a physical player in his own right, but his tendency to get lost in coverage at the worst possible moment makes him a player I would not want to count on to start.
If that’s your top four—and it very well may be—that’s something you can more than live with if Phillips and Alford continue to grow and improve. But the Falcons added insurance in the form of a few veterans, the most noteworthy of which was Antonio Hamilton. The veteran corner has been an underrated player for a while now, with strong work in coverage the past three seasons with Arizona and a career-low 56.8% completion percentage allowed and career-high six pass breakups in a part-time starting role in 2023. With quality size and those coverage chops, he’s the most credible threat to Phillips’ grip on the starting job, and a player who figures to be excellent depth if he doesn’t win that job.
The rest are less certain contributors. Kevin King was seemingly putting it together before injuries began to take a bite out of his career, and he’s now been out of the league for years because of those ailments and COVID. If healthy, he’s familiar with this coaching staff and has the size and physicality to be interesting, albeit likely as a reserve. Similarly, Anthony Johnson had a strong college career and should be in the mix for a final spot, as well Natrone Brooks (who had a quality summer in 2023) and undrafted free agents Trey Vaval, Jayden Price, and Anthony Sao.
Chances are good the final depth chart will feature Terrell, Phillips, Alford, Hamilton, and Hughes in some order, with perhaps one spot left over for another competitor and a couple of practice squad slots. The Falcons should, despite the lack of draft investment, have a pretty good group.
The motto for the cornerback room may as well be “trust, but verify.” The Falcons have talked up Phillips in particular and Alford to a lesser extent because they clearly like their young cornerbacks, and Raheem Morris seems to share my opinion that Phillips could be a damn good starter. But the team has also quietly re-tooled their depth, keeping Mike Hughes around while adding Hamilton (nine game starter in 2023), King (a familiar face for this coaching staff and an experienced starter), and Johnson, in addition to three interesting undrafted free agent cornerbacks. If Phillips, Alford, or both don’t seize those jobs, the Falcons have fallback plans.
That means there’s a safety net here and the floor should be reasonably high. The ceiling is more of a question, and that depends greatly on what Phillips and Alford are—and can be—and what Terrell gives the team after a year marred by a handful of poor games. If things click with this group and a deep, experienced coaching staff guiding them, the Falcons secondary has a chance to be a team strength in 2024. If not, well, the offense is supposed to be a lot better, right?
You must be logged in to post a comment Login