The Atlanta Falcons know who their No. 1 cornerback is. Who lines up across from him is a question training camp will have to answer. In the team’s cornerback camp preview published this week, senior reporter Tori McElhaney of atlantafalcons.com called the job opposite A.J. Terrell Jr. a two-man race, barring injury: Mike Hughes or second-round rookie Avieon Terrell — A.J.’s younger brother.
The case for Hughes is continuity. He started all 12 games he played in 2025, every one of them opposite Terrell, and the veteran’s presence is the main reason Atlanta doesn’t have to force anything here. The case for the rookie is what the Falcons spent to get him — a second-round pick in April — and a family precedent: A.J. Terrell started from his first game as a rookie in 2020, and it worked.
The most useful detail in McElhaney’s report is about deployment. Avieon Terrell has the flexibility to play inside or outside, but the team’s plan is to keep him at outside corner rather than cross-train him at nickel, so his development points at one job: a starting spot on the boundary. McElhaney writes that Atlanta would like to get him starting reps opposite his brother eventually — the open question is when, and that answer may come within a handful of camp practices.
The measured read: this is a good competition for Atlanta to have. If Hughes holds the job into September, the Falcons open the season with the same pairing that finished 2025, and the rookie arrives on his own schedule. If Avieon Terrell takes it, a second-rounder beat out a 12-game starter in his first camp, which tells you something real about him. Either outcome leaves the room deeper than it was late last season, when Billy Bowman Jr.‘s ruptured Achilles ended his rookie year early and Dee Alford — since departed for Buffalo — was pressed into the lineup.
Camp opens with the first practice on July 29 in Flowery Branch. Hughes and the younger Terrell splitting first-team reps will be the most-watched competition of the opening week.
