A.
J. Terrell.
A.
J. Terrell.
Clemson· 6'1"· 195 lb· 4.42s 40
"A long, fluid press corner from a national-championship secondary whose evaluation came down to one question: how much weight should a single brutal title-game night against LSU carry?"Pre-draft read
Terrell plays with length and patience. He gets hands on receivers at the line, mirrors releases without panicking and has the hip fluidity to turn and run with speed down the sideline. Clemson trusted him in press-man on an island, and his ball production came from staying attached rather than gambling.
He is a willing tackler in run support and will come downhill on screens, which not every press corner does. The questions are top-end recovery speed and consistency at the catch point: when a receiver does win the stem, he does not always close the gap, and he can be late to locate the ball in phase. The 2020 title game against LSU, where Ja'Marr Chase beat him repeatedly, is the exhibit evaluators weigh against three years of clean tape.
Press-man heavy defense that lets him jam at the line and travel with an opponent's primary outside receiver
Year 1 starting outside corner in a man-heavy scheme; ceiling is a true No. 1 shadow corner with All-Pro recognition
A pure zone-match defense that asks him to play off, read the quarterback and generate takeaways rather than smother a receiver
His value shows up in targets and completion rate allowed, not in interception totals
A.J. Terrell 2019 Season Highlights | Clemson DB
Junior-season coverage reps on the boundary.
Clemson CB AJ Terrell Career Highlights
Full career cut-up including his championship-season production.
Clemson CB AJ Terrell Highlights
Press-man technique and downfield ball skills.
Terrell is a three-year contributor from the best defensive program in college football, a 6-1 corner with the frame and technique teams want on the boundary. He arrived at Clemson as a freshman on a national title team, became a full-time starter as a sophomore, and stayed in the lineup for 44 games across three seasons.
The career line reads 103 tackles, four tackles for loss, six interceptions, 14 passes defensed and two forced fumbles. His sophomore season in 2018 was the most productive: 54 tackles, three interceptions for 95 yards and a touchdown, and two forced fumbles for a defense that won the national championship. As a junior he added 34 tackles, two interceptions and a half sack before declaring.
The draft debate was almost entirely about the January 2020 title game, where LSU's receivers, and Ja'Marr Chase in particular, worked him badly on national television. Scouts who weighted the full body of work saw a technically sound press corner with starter traits; those who weighted the last impression saw a corner who gets separated from at the top of the route. Atlanta, needing an outside corner opposite an aging group, took him sixteenth.
- 01
Press technique
Gets clean hands on receivers at the line and disrupts timing without grabbing downfield or drawing contact penalties.
- 02
Hip fluidity
Flips and runs with vertical routes down the sideline, staying attached through the stem against ACC speed.
- 03
Length on the boundary
At 6-1 with long arms he contests throws at the catch point that shorter corners can only watch.
- 04
Three-year program experience
Played 44 games in Clemson's secondary, including two national championship games, against elite competition.
- 05
Run support willingness
Comes downhill on screens and outside runs and tackles reliably rather than avoiding contact on the edge.
- 01
Recovery speed
When a receiver wins the release he struggles to close the gap, and elite vertical speed can run past him.
- 02
Ball location in phase
Late to turn and find the football at times, turning contested throws into completions he should break up.
- 03
Championship-game tape
LSU's receivers beat him repeatedly in January 2020, the most visible game of his college career.
- 04
Modest takeaway rate
Six interceptions across three seasons is fine rather than disruptive for a first-round boundary corner.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.42sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 129inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 15repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Clemson | 14 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 0 |
| 2018 | Clemson | 15 | 54 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 2019 | Clemson | 15 | 34 | 0.5 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Career | — | 44 | 103 | 0.5 | 6 | 14 | 2 |
Parsed from Sports-Reference CFB career page via Firecrawl.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Sticky boundary starter with strong coverage grades and modest interception totals.
Long press corner who takes away a side of the field and earns a top-of-market extension.
Physically gifted first-round corner whose inconsistency keeps him from locking down a starting role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The doubts about the title game were wrong. Terrell has started all 95 games he has appeared in over seven seasons, missing time only to injury, and has been Atlanta's best defensive back throughout. He broke out in 2021 with 81 tackles, three interceptions and 16 passes defensed, earning second-team All-Pro recognition and finishing as one of the highest-graded coverage corners in football that year.
Atlanta made the commitment official in August 2024 with a four-year, $81 million extension through 2028, $65.8 million effectively guaranteed, the largest four-year guarantee ever given to a cornerback at the time. He answered with 66 tackles and two interceptions in 2024 and 68 tackles with 12 passes defensed in 2025. Through two games of 2026 he has six tackles and two passes defensed. Career totals sit at 95 games, 387 tackles, 63 passes defensed, six interceptions and six forced fumbles. He is not the ballhawk the box score wants, but shadowing a No. 1 receiver every week rarely produces one. Atlanta got a decade-long starter at sixteen.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.