{"id":184621,"date":"2025-07-06T00:29:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T00:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/184621\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T00:29:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T00:29:30","slug":"falcons-biggest-miss-of-the-offseason-was-not-signing-48m-lions-cb-to-pair-with-aj-terrell-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/184621\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons&#8217; biggest miss of the offseason was not signing $48M Lions CB to pair with AJ Terrell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Atlanta Falcons haven\u2019t done much but lose this offseason. Their main objective was to move Kirk Cousins, but that quickly became impossible when the Steelers signed Aaron Rodgers as their temporary quarterback.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith Rodgers going to the Steelers, Cousins is left without a viable destination to satisfy his goal of being a starting quarterback in 2025. Thus, Cousins will be forced to play the waiting game\u2014perhaps until training camp, the preseason, or into the regular season\u2014and monitor the health of quarterbacks around the NFL,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nfl\/atlanta-falcons\/news\/kirk-cousins-nightmare-scenario-comes-true-falcons-lose-viable-destination-after-steelers-move\/31fe3225cf348b20ee5e6b48\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Sports Illustrated\u2019s Daniel Flick wrote.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Sports Illustrated\u2019s Daniel Flick wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>With Atlanta losing out on trade options, they are now stuck holding Cousins\u2019 $27.5 million guaranteed salary for the upcoming season. That\u2019s where they really become the losers in this deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat stinks for Cousins, and the Falcons may not be too thrilled about running out of trade options either. While Atlanta has said it is \u2018comfortable\u2019 keeping Cousins around as its backup, general manager Terry Fontenot can&#8217;t be eager to hand out a $27.5 million salary to his QB2,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nfl\/atlanta-falcons\/news\/falcons-deemed-losers-steelers-aaron-rodgers-deal-forced-pay-dreaded-275-million-price-tag\/dad3f65eff67fc6c2fd49ada\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Bleacher Report\u2019s Kristopher Knox wrote.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Bleacher Report\u2019s Kristopher Knox wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After trading Jalen Ramsey, the Falcons\u2019 pursuit for someone to pair alongside AJ Terrell at cornerback was solidified.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRamsey and Jaire Alexander both off the market certainly leads one to believe the Falcons&#8217; cornerback room is mostly set for 2025,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/nfl\/atlanta-falcons\/news\/dolphins-steelers-jalen-ramsey-trade-holds-major-implications-falcons-2025-season\/939e079922d96c5c5f44120f\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Flick wrote.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Flick wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029Vakw2IH60eBZ4UO1Iz1b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Follow The Sporting News on WhatsApp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, they could have added a cornerback previously coached by new defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Falcons know they have one of the game&#8217;s top cornerbacks in A.J. Terrell. Last year, they complemented him most of the year with veteran Mike Hughes. Hughes played well enough to land a three-year, $18 million extension, but they shouldn&#8217;t have stopped there. D.J. Reed should&#8217;ve been aggressively pursued to help round out their cornerback position,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/bloggingdirty.com\/falcons-already-regret-not-making-this-free-agent-move-this-offseason\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Blogging Dirty\u2019s Grayson Freestone wrote.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Blogging Dirty\u2019s Grayson Freestone wrote.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Reed ended up signing with the Lions, but he would have been a great addition to the secondary alongside Terrell. The Falcons have had a lot of swing and misses this offseason, and missing out on Reed only continues that trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Falcons haven\u2019t done much but lose this offseason. Their main objective was to move Kirk Cousins,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[1586,223,254,2554,317,40168,224,7,5390,1815,294,11425,6,426,2661,7215,18589],"class_list":{"0":"post-184621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-aaron-rodgers","9":"tag-atlanta","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons","11":"tag-atlantafalcons","12":"tag-d-j-reed","13":"tag-daniel-flick","14":"tag-falcons","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-jaire-alexander","17":"tag-jalen-ramsey","18":"tag-kirk-cousins","19":"tag-mike-hughes","20":"tag-nfl","21":"tag-steelers","22":"tag-the-falcons","23":"tag-the-steelers","24":"tag-trade-options"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114803465739174882","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}