putting cornerback Avieon Terrell in the same defensive backfield as his brother A.J.<\/a> is the fact that the Falcons may have gotten a steal regardless of Avieon\u2019s family tree. He was rated the fourth-best cornerback and 27th-best prospect at any position by The Athletic\u2019s Dane Brugler, but Atlanta got him with the 48th pick.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s crazy, but I\u2019m glad it happened,\u201d Terrell said Saturday as he toured the team\u2019s facility. \u201cThey made a mistake letting me and my brother team up, they weren\u2019t supposed to let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Terrell\u2019s draft stock was hurt when he ran a 4.64 40-yard dash at Clemson\u2019s pro day while nursing a hamstring injury, but he said Saturday his leg is healthy, and he\u2019ll be able to go full speed throughout the offseason program.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore fuel to the fire,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Most surprising pick<\/p>\n
Linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., selected at pick No. 216 in the sixth round, was surprised himself. \u201cAtlanta wasn\u2019t one of the teams I was talking to a lot,\u201d the LSU alum said. The 6-1, 223-pounder burst onto the scene with 7.5 sacks for the Tigers as a 17-year-old freshman in 2022, but his career didn\u2019t go as planned from there. After 5.5 sacks as a sophomore, he suffered an ACL tear in his junior year before bouncing back to have four sacks and three interceptions in his final season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m getting my confidence back in my knee,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like (my college career) went how it was supposed to go. Everybody wants the perfect Cinderella story, but it isn\u2019t always going to be like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perkins\u2019 size and tailing collegiate production is the reason he was still around in the sixth round for Atlanta.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t 200 people in this draft better than me. I know that for a fact,\u201d he said. \u201cMy end goal wasn\u2019t just to get to the league. My end goal is to have a gold jacket. This is just part of my story.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bad news for Atlanta fans: The New Orleans native grew up a Saints fan.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuess what though? I ain\u2019t a Saints fan no more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Biggest question mark<\/p>\n
Did the Falcons need to take Kendal Daniels that high? Atlanta drafted the Oklahoma linebacker with the 134th pick, which is 74 spots higher than he appeared on Brugler\u2019s final Big Board. The answer is \u201cmaybe\u201d if they really wanted him, considering the Falcons\u2019 next pick didn\u2019t come until No. 208, but if he doesn\u2019t work out, this will be remembered as a reach.<\/p>\n
Regardless of how Daniels does on the field, it looks like he\u2019ll be a hit with the team\u2019s media for as long as he\u2019s around. The 6-5, 242-pounder was ecstatic after his selection.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t prepare for something like this, I don\u2019t care how many times you\u2019ve watched it,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing in this position is a surreal moment. I can\u2019t put into words how excited I am to go down there and work with those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniels was a safety his first three years of college but grew into a linebacker after he gave up his basketball hobby, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I was a hooper for sure, but that was 60 pounds ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Daniels played four years at Oklahoma State before transferring to rival Oklahoma for his final season. It was a move he never dreamed he\u2019d make.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom kept telling me to answer their calls, and I never would,\u201d he said. \u201cOh, I hated them. A year and a half ago, if you had told me I\u2019d be getting drafted out of Oklahoma I\u2019d have told you to get out of my face. It was bad blood. That\u2019s why I know God is real. He brought me to this position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remaining needs<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still room for another wide receiver and tight end in Atlanta, and it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise to see the Falcons address those spots as they turn their attention to the pool of undrafted free agents. Even after adding Branch to the wide receiver room, Atlanta doesn\u2019t have an obvious fifth wide receiver, much less a sixth option. At tight end, the Falcons have Kyle Pitts, Austin Hooper, Charlie Woerner and Joshua Simon.<\/p>\n
Post-draft outlook<\/p>\n
Nothing that happened over the weekend changed the prospects for the Falcons\u2019 first season under Cunningham, head coach Kevin Stefanski and president of football Matt Ryan. This is not exactly a Year Zero for the new regime, but Atlanta was conservative in free agency and did not have a first-round pick this weekend. The Falcons could snap their streak of eight straight losing seasons and even earn a playoff spot in an NFC South without a prohibitive favorite, but this offseason was mostly about re-establishing a foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ian Cunningham\u2019s first NFL Draft as Atlanta Falcons general manager is complete, and he\u2019s cautiously optimistic about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,2554,224,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-875070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlantafalcons","11":"tag-falcons","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116470441806011013","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875070","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=875070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}