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#6, Trent McDuffie, Kansas City Chiefs (Cornerback)

Kansas City Chiefs v Denver Broncos

Formerly a top-100 overall recruit in 2019, Trent McDuffie ended up starting all but two of 28 career games at Washington. He showed continuous growth, intercepting two passes and breaking up another ten, along with three forced fumbles, improving from second- to first-team All-Pac-12 as a junior.

The Chiefs used the first of their two first-round picks (along with George Karlaftis) on this very clean prospect, to counter-balance some of their losses in the defensive backfield and McDuffie repaid them with a very solid rookie campaign.

After suffering a hamstring injury starting the season-opener at Arizona – which cost him six weeks – he was a fixture in the lineup throughout the final ten regular season and their three playoff contests.

Overall, he put together 59 combined tackles, ten passes broken up and a couple of forced fumbles during the regular season. Across three playoff contests, he added three more PBUs and a forced fumble, playing all but two snaps total.

What was very impressive about McDuffie as a rookie is that he excelled at two different positions already. After spending 67.9% of snaps out wide during the regular season and playing there full-time in their Divisional playoff game against the Jaguars, he was a full-time nickel from that point on when KC re-gained health among that room.

As a man-defender, he really understands how to play to his leverage and not prematurely commit his hips, initiating contact with receivers just as they get to the opposite shoulder trying to release/break across his face, flattening the angle and making it easier for himself to attach to the hip-pocket of the man.

His eyes are locked on the hips of his guy on vertical stems, without letting him get past the top shoulder and you didn’t really see guys detach from him a whole lot, as he counters hand-swipes instinctively. He’s incredible against curl and deep out routes from the slot, as his hands are attached and he feels the deceleration of the receiver.

His film study to ID splits and understand how opponents are trying to manipulate him with different footwork and using sudden bursts, is apparent. And he doesn’t lose contact or sight of the receiver as that guy transitions to a secondary route or just works back down the stem.

Watching McDuffie in week 15 against the Broncos, he lined up primarily as the boundary corner and stuck with Jerry Jeudy along with completely shutting down the rest of that banged-up WR corp, ultimately allowing two completions for eight yards on six targets, which the six-yard TD included in that, I don’t believe was actually his fault.

Then watching the AFC Championship game against the Bengals (back inside by alignment), that was one of the cleanest tapes I watched for any slot corner for the entire 2022/23 season. He denied multiple routes as a zone-defender, not losing phase really at all in man against Tyler Boyd or Trent Irwin and then making several challenging tackles one-on-one in space.

Back out at corner, McDuffie also showed some pretty impressive football IQ falling underneath routes in cover-three, including a near-interception picking up a corner-post route by the tight-end and turning his head late without initiating premature contact in that Denver game.

So there is certainly potential for deploying this young man on the perimeter more regularly, if they want to put L’Jarius Sneed in the slot for certain matchups or they’re dealing with injuries.

McDuffie excels at reading the eyes of the quarterback as a spot-dropping overhang defender almost. He controls that space between the hashes and numbers, being able to pick up crossers as the pattern is developing, but you’re also playing with fire trying to hit throws behind him, as he floats underneath them. So you’re not going to take advantage of being able to hit targets curling up in his vicinity.

Generally, his eyes toggle between the quarterback and targets around him, and he plays through the mitts of the intended target exceptionally well. They also bailed him out into a deep half from that nickel spot.

During the regular season, he held quarterbacks to 27-of-51 for 253 yards and three touchdowns across 425 coverage snaps, for just 5.0 yards per target (sixth-lowest among all CBs with 40+ targets) and a passer rating of 86.5.

Along with that, he only had two penalties accepted against him and while those two defensive P.I. calls did result in 50 yards, 40 of those came on a tertiary route by Jerry Jeudy in the first Denver game, where the head of any corner would be spinning because of how deep the play went into backyard mode.

Looking at McDuffie’s run defense, he does a nice job of eluding receivers sifting across or just from condensed splits trying to block him. Yet I’ve also seen him be the one to first put his hands on the offensive tackle pulling to the corner on crack-toss plays.

He’s a more than willing contributor in that facet of the game, with the combination of toughness and slippery movement skills to actually make an impact rather than just funneling the ball toward his teammates. Plus, then arrives very low as a tackler and trips up bigger ball carriers effectively, even if he only gets a shot on them from the side. That’s why he missed just two of 46 attempted tackles in year one.

While the way he studies the game and how he anticipates route patterns is apparent, the two types of pass-catchers that can get McDuffie in trouble at times are clever route-runners (who understand how to manipulate what he reads) and bigger bodies (who can shield the ball with their frame, considering he’s a little undersized for matching up against the trendy power slots at 5-foot-11, 195 pounds).

You see some guys nod opposite from where he’s leveraged towards and force the DB to flip the wrong way, turning him around a little bit in the process. McDuffie had arguably his worst performance of the season in the Super Bowl, when he allowed three of five targets his way to be completed for 56 yards and a touchdown, along with missing the same amount of tackles as he did all regular season (two).

The long touchdown to A.J. Brown was on him for example, because he thought he was in control of the (post-)corner route, but lost the ball in the air as he flipped his head around. Being able to locate the pass at the end-phase of coverage reps and not turning around at the last possible moment, to where now he can’t play the ball or man will be key for him down the field.

Finally, his arms being a quarter of an inch short of the 30-mark hurt his ability to wrap around the intended target as the ball arrives there and it limits his tackling radius to some degree.

While McDuffie doesn’t offer an elite physical profile I would say, his football IQ, studying habits, short-area quickness and competitiveness are all tremendous. I believe if they allow those strengths to shine in the slot, it could unlock what defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo wants to do even more.

The way he can fit the run and stop bigger ball-carriers in space are a big plus for them on early downs. Once they get to obvious passing situations, he can not only play sticky man-coverage against most receivers, but his spatial awareness and versatility could lend themselves to a lot more switch-calls with him and the safeties (where they change up the picture for opposing quarterbacks post-snap and give the pass-rush a beat longer to get home).

Sprinkled on top of that is the fact I believe they can lean more into this young man as a blitzer, where he did have four pressures across a very limited sample size of 16 pass-rush snaps, but his short-area burst and ability to corral scrambling quarterbacks could make him even more effective as the opportunities increase.