Thomas Dimitroff was again on Clemson’s campus scouting the coming draft-eligible prospects. This was in 2017, with the Falcons' general manager seeing if there were any Tigers he may want to potentially add to his team. This visit wasn’t long after Clemson had won a national championship with Deshaun Watson at quarterback.
Of course, Clemson was putting players in the NFL well before then. Dimitroff took two Clemson players in 2015 -- first-rounder Vic Beasley and fifth-rounder Grady Jarrett.
As Dimitroff watched that 2017 practice, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney approached him for a conversation. As the two talked, Swinney drew Dimitroff’s attention toward the cornerback group and offered a strong endorsement.
“Here’s a guy right here you’ll be back for in a couple of years if he keeps developing,” Swinney said.
Sometimes coaches can oversell how great their young players can be. In this case, Swinney was talking up a then-freshman cornerback A.J. Terrell, a coveted five-star recruit who attended high school at Atlanta’s Westlake. Dimitroff started honing in on Terrell at this practice and became impressed with the measurables he saw.
Speed. Length. Fluidity of movement.
Of course, Terrell still had much to learn about the game during this phase of his career. But all of the attributes NFL executives look for were on display. Even Swinney knew that Terrell had first-round talent shortly after he showed up on campus.
There were plenty of top-notch prospects present for Dimitroff that day, including the three defensive linemen taken in the first round of the 2019 NFL draft -- Clelin Ferrell (fourth overall, Raiders), Christian Wilkins (13th overall, Dolphins), Dexter Lawrence (17th overall, Giants). While Wilkins was high on the team’s 2019 draft board, Dimitroff said Terrell was the “one who caught my attention.”
“I remember seeing him move around and seeing the physical elements of what he had to offer,” Dimitroff said. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, let’s keep an eye on this guy.’ Every year you continue to watch a guy like that when you’ve been given a heads up by a coach who has such a grasp of his players like Dabo does.”
Dimitroff took the recommendation and tucked it away for a later day. After Terrell’s sophomore season, which saw him record a pick-six early in Clemson’s national-title win over Alabama and earn third-team All-ACC honors, it became likely that he would bypass his senior season for the NFL draft. Dimitroff and his staff continued to keep an eye on Terrell before diving into his game head-first after the 2019 college football season.
The tangibles were there. But what about the other aspects that make a player important to a team?
Since becoming the Falcons' general manager in 2008, Dimitroff has looked for these similar traits in players, regardless of position.
- To go with athletic ability, “you want to see the focus, you want to see the dedication, you want to see the grit,” he said.
- The player must have a natural passion for the game. “If someone is laissez-faire gaggling around or dilly-dallying around, that’s something that stands out,” Dimitroff said.
- Traits involve resilience and toughness are important. That factors into the team’s CT (competitive/toughness) grading scale.
“He’s handled himself like a pro from the first moment I met him,” Swinney said of Terrell. “What I mean by that is just he’s about his business all the time. Very, very focused.”
How a player moves on the field, through the eye test, also is important. While Dimitroff said the team has relied much more on analytics during the draft process than ever before, Terrell’s physical traits were easy to spot from the get-go. At 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, Terrell’s NFL scouting combine saw him run the 40-yard dash in 4.42 seconds, lift 225 pounds 15 times on the bench press and post a vertical leap of 34.5 inches. Considered a bigger corner, how Terrell moved, whether in person or when watching his video, is what stood out a great deal.
“When you look out there, very similar to Julio Jones,” Dimitroff said. “When you look at Julio Jones from afar and you’re like, ‘That guy moves like he’s 5-11 or 6-feet.’ This guy is the same way. If you didn’t know his height, he moves like he’s 5-11. He just has that ability to control his body.”
In his 13 years as the Falcons' general manager, Dimitroff has selected 14 first-rounders. Of those players, Dimitroff said the following were players he with whom became “enamored at first sight” -- Jones, Matt Ryan, Desmond Trufant, Keanu Neal, Calvin Ridley and Chris Lindstrom.
He added Terrell to the group based on what he saw from the start.
“They all had an element of initially being enamored,” Dimitroff said. “Physically, mentally, athletically. Combined with the fact that everyone of those guys are top notch people and souls that I really believe make an organization what they are on and off the field. There’s not one of those guys I mentioned that I wasn’t proud to be a part of us. That’s a really important thing.”
While Dimitroff had his eye on Terrell for three years, Falcons coach Dan Quinn said the team put the Clemson cornerback near the top of the team’s wish list between his scouting-combine performance and the draft. Given the need to add a corner after releasing Trufant, the Falcons determined Terrell to be a perfect fit for the team’s scheme.
“I’d say about a month out we’d done a lot of calls with people checking in,” Quinn said. “We certainly had good connections at Clemson with Dabo and their staff. I think just getting a chance to see how competitive he was and is, those are things, whether it’s coaches who said it or teammates who said it, or other opponents who said it, those are some of the traits at that position where you better be down to battle for it.”
With a week or so to go before the draft, Dimitroff and Swinney had another conversation about Terrell.
During it, Swinney brought up what Dimitroff told him in 2015, that while he would love Beasley’s athletic ability, Jarrett would be a program-changing type of player. Swinney told Dimitroff that Terrell has every quality Jarrett possesses but with the desired first-round measurables.
After that conversation, Swinney believed there was a great chance Terrell would wind up with the Falcons.
“I felt like if he was there they were going to take him,” Swinney said. “I’m glad it worked out that way. I think there was one other corner they were looking at, they had two guys on their board. But I think A.J. was the guy they really wanted. It worked out perfect for them. He’s going to be a great pro.”
Even during a much different preseason, one absent of exhibition games, Terrell has put forth some impressive performances in front of his new teammates. He’s worked a lot against Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley in practice, which should help prepare him for many of the other great NFL receivers he’ll have to defend as a first-year starter.
Jarrett has been impressed with Terrell’s workmanlike approach as a rookie.
“A.J. is a guy who doesn’t say much,” Jarrett said. “He goes to work and produces. He’s got a real confident swagger to him, and I’m really excited to have him on the team, and I’m excited to see him go to work. We have full confidence in him. I know he’s going to make some big plays.”
Terrell said he’s more than ready for the big stage as a rookie. Spending the offseason training at local parks with his teammates, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, helped him while the team facility was shut down. He’ll obviously have a tough task in his first game, against the Seattle Seahawks and quarterback Russell Wilson.
But Terrell has never been one to back down from a challenge, which is one of the many reasons Dimitroff wanted to select him in the first round this year.
“I fit in very well, coming in learning the cornerback position and all the other positions to make myself play faster,” Terrell said. “I’m just going in daily, just working and not making the same mistakes I made the day before.”
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