Falcons Have Several Options to Solve Their Biggest Secondary Question

FLOWERY BRANCH – The Atlanta Falcons spent much of the offseason rebuilding one specific area of their secondary: the nickel.

And for good reason.

Billy Bowman Jr. quickly locked down the position during training camp last summer, and then showed some real promise early in his rookie season, but a torn Achilles cost him the chance to finish his first year strong and perhaps the early parts of his second. In his place, the Falcons were fortunate to have a resurgent Dee Alford in the mix. The veteran had a career season after Bowman went down, but he was lost during free agency.

The loss of both players left an obvious hole for the Falcons to replace. In 2026, the scheme remains the same, but the faces will be new.

“Everybody’s working,” cornerback Mike Hughes said about the secondary as a whole, and bringing the new players along during camp. “Nobody’s afraid of the competition. Everybody’s coming along well, and I just think it [the new competition] makes everybody better at the end of the day.”

As a unit, the secondary was strong for the majority of the season. They finished No. 13 in yards allowed (200.4), No. 14 in EPA per pass allowed (-0.08), and didn’t allow a single 200-yard performance until Week 8. It was only after injuries to Bowman and Hughes that the unit slowed down, allowing 230 or more passing yards in six of their final eight games.

But with Bowman continuing his long rehabilitation process and Alford no longer being an option, Ian Cunningham made a pointed effort to infuse the room with new heads that can wear a variety of hats.

Chief among those new players are rookie Avieon Terrell, who can shift between the inside and outside cornerback positions, and safety Sydney Brown, who is built strikingly similar to Bowman and can flip between his listed position and being a heavy nickel corner.

“You have to be okay with mixing and matching in this day and age,” Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski said. “The idea that you just have 11 guys that play just is not realistic. I feel very, very fortunate to have guys at the nickel position, multiple guys at the nickel position that can do different jobs.”

With defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich emphasizing multiplicity in his fronts, having a nickel who can play both coverage and support the run gives Atlanta more flexibility with its pre-snap looks. Their ability to play multiple spots could allow Atlanta to move them around based on personnel, rather than locking them into traditional nickel roles.

Of the other options, A.J. Woods is the lone healthy returning option for the Falcons inside, and he has received plenty of starting reps through the first week of action. Veteran Darnay Holmes is another option for Ulbrich to toy around with, and he has already made it clear that he has high expectations for himself this season.

Those two, along with Terrell, are the primary candidates to start for the Falcons early in the season, while Brown could be involved in goal-line or run-support situations. The rotation will continue to evolve as the summer goes on, but most importantly, the Falcons have clearly given themselves more options to play with.

“Being around these guys, there’s a lot of development going on,” Holmes said. “I’m just excited for the room to grow and cultivate.”

All four have a path to the job. That flexibility, more than any single player winning the role outright, may be exactly what the Falcons were looking for.

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