FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — A.J. Terrell’s poker face was tested Friday night. It failed.

Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski called Terrell shortly before Atlanta was set to pick with the 48th selection of the 2026 NFL Draft in Friday’s second round. Stefanski told his starting cornerback that the team was going to take his younger brother and fellow cornerback Avieon Terrell with the pick. Then he told A.J. to keep it quiet.

“I’m expecting my little bro’s phone to ring and my phone rings,” A.J. said. “I didn’t want to show too much emotion because he was standing right next to me. It was hard for me to hold my water for a minute.”

“Yeah,” Avieon said, “he tried to act like he didn’t know, but I know Bro, I read through him.”

The brothers starred at Westlake High School in Atlanta and at Clemson but have never been teammates due to their seven-year age difference. That will change now after the Falcons used their first pick of 2026 draft to reunite the two.

“I knew when that 47th pick went away, I was going to get that call from my hometown team, I felt it,” Avieon said. “Tears of joy. It means the world to me, just to be able to play with Bro. Me on one side, my brother on the other side, time to get to work. I’m just blessed.”

The Falcons took A.J. Terrell with the No. 16 pick of the 2020 draft, and he has started 93 games and intercepted six passes in Atlanta. He signed a four-year, $81 million extension with the team in 2024.

“It’s crazy right now,” A.J. said after grabbing his brother’s phone to talk to reporters at the family’s draft party in Atlanta. “I don’t even know how I’m feeling. Another surreal moment. Watching little bro play ball for years, just coaching him up, being the big bro, and now being able to strap up with him and go to work with him every day, playing on Sundays, right at the crib, can’t make it up, man. Just want to give all glory to God.”

Avieon Terrell was The Athletic draft expert Dane Brugler’s No. 4 cornerback and No. 27 prospect in the 2026 draft. He was considered a potential first-round pick until he ran a 4.64-second 40-yard dash at Clemson’s pro day while nursing a hamstring injury.

“We’re excited to get him at the point of the draft where we got him, didn’t think that Avieon was going to be there,” Falcons general manager Ian Cunningham said. “What a cool experience for him and his family. It was fun being able to call both of them and hear their excitement.”

During a midday strategy session Friday, Atlanta’s president of football Matt Ryan asked Cunningham which available players he would not trade off of. The top name on that list was Terrell, Cunningham said.

“He’s tough, competitive, scrappy, plays the ball, plays the way we want our guys to play,” Cunningham said.

Terrell had nine tackles for loss, eight forced fumbles and 23 passes defended in his final two seasons at Clemson.

“I’m a dog, a competitor,” he said. “I’m coming in to be a leader. I’m a very vocal leader. They are getting somebody who is very versatile, can do anything in the secondary.”

Avieon Terrell played both outside corner and nickel for the Tigers, which allows him to compete with Mike Hughes for the starting outside cornerback spot opposite his brother or provide insurance at nickel in case Billy Bowman is slow to recover from the Achilles tear that ended his 2025 season. The Falcons hosted Avieon Terrell on a top-30 visit during the pre-draft process.

“You can never have enough good corners,” Stefanski said. “I worked for Mike Zimmer and I have heard that many, many times.”

A.J. Terrell said he had imagined the idea of playing with his brother before the draft but did not think it was a realistic hope.

“I played the story in my head a few times,” he said. “I didn’t think it would happen, though. That was just me being a big bro, ‘What if, what if, what if.’”

When Avieon Terrell’s call finally came, “My heart dropped,” Avieon said.

“I looked right at A.J. and told him, ‘It’s time, bro.’ It feels amazing,” he said. “It means the world to me. I prayed for it last night.”

BEIJING — Atlanta will have giant pandas again.

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China on Friday announced it will send two giant pandas to Zoo Atlanta in the U.S., in Beijing’s latest efforts of panda diplomacy despite tensions with Washington, and less than a month before a much-anticipated visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing.

The China Wildlife Conservation Association said in a statement that male panda Ping Ping and female panda Fu Shuang, from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, will kick off a decade-long conservation cooperation under an agreement it signed with the zoo last year.

The association did not specify their departure date but said the U.S. side was actively carrying out facility upgrades, among other preparation work, to create a more comfortable and safer environment for the pair. In the meantime, Chinese experts were providing technical guidance on the upgrades, it said.

The announcement came weeks ahead of Trump’s planned visit to China in mid-May, during which he is expected to discuss various issues, including trade, with his counterpart Xi Jinping.

Zoo Atlanta said in a statement Thursday that it was delighted and honored to be trusted as stewards of the pandas and to partner with the association.

“We can’t wait to meet Ping Ping and Fu Shuang and to welcome our members, guests, city, and community back to the wonder and joy of giant pandas,” the zoo’s president, Raymond B. King, said.

During an earlier giant panda agreement between the zoo and China that concluded in 2024, pandas Lun Lun and Yang Yang gave birth to seven bears, the zoo said. Lun Lun and Yang Yan and their two youngest offspring left Atlanta for China in October 2024, where the rest of their offspring reside, it said.

China’s giant panda loan program has long been known as a tool of Beijing’s soft-power diplomacy, but its conservation significance could have been an important reason Beijing is renewing its cooperation with U.S. zoos at a time of otherwise sour relations.

The association said Friday that the new round of cooperation will help China and the U.S. to yield more results in areas ranging from disease prevention and treatment to scientific exchanges.

Giant pandas have long been a symbol of the U.S.-China friendship, ever since Beijing gifted a pair of pandas to the National Zoo in Washington in 1972.

In 2024, the National Zoo in Washington and the San Diego Zoo also received pandas from China.