Atlanta’s clearly still looking to make some moves in free agency. They restructured Jake Matthews’ deal last week to free up some cap space, and now they’ve done the same with A.J. Terrell’s contract.
The restructure gives Atlanta about $9 million more to work with. That in turns makes Terrell’s contract unpalatable to move on from until 2028, but the Falcons are likely banking on him being part of the team beyond that point anyways.
Terrell is coming off a season where he surrendered one more touchdown than the year before (3 total), but deflected more passes, lowered his yardage allowed, completion percentage allowed, yards after the catch allowed, and missed tackle percentage despite being targeted a bit more frequently than he was in 2025. That’s all positive, but some of that good work was undone by his lack of turnovers—for the third time in the past four seasons, Terrell had no interceptions last year—and his ugly penalty total. He was penalized a career high 12 times last year, including a rash all in one game, and will need to clean that up in 2025. Terrell remains a very capable top cornerback, regardless.
The Falcons now have a little north of $22 million in cap space, per Over the Cap, which puts them 18th in the NFL in that particular metric. That won’t all be used to forget new deals with existing players—though some of it might be—and that suggests that positions like inside linebacker, cornerback, and running back that the Falcons haven’t touched yet might be in for some free agent dollars. We’ll hopefully find out this week.
