Pro Football Focus misses the mark on Trent McDuffie while ranking their top 32 CBs heading into the 2025 season

Trent McDuffie has been one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL since his debut in 2022.

He missed six of the first seven weeks of his rookie season due to a hamstring injury. However, when he returned, he gave Kansas City's secondary a huge boost. McDuffie put it all together in 2023, earning First-Team All-Pro honors. In 2024 he was named Second-Team All-Pro.

While ranking their top 32 cornerbacks ahead of the 2025 season, the folks at Pro Football Focus placed McDuffie at No. 3, behind the New York Jets' Sauce Gardner and the Denver Broncos' Patrick Surtain II. Their blurb about McDuffie could hint as to what is preventing him from topping the list.

From PFF: "McDuffie, the highest-graded cornerback in PFF's advanced metrics in 2024, has been highly underrated to start his career. His PFF advanced coverage grade ranks second across the past three years — and first across the past two years — while his standard PFF coverage grade in that span (89.0) places fourth. The Chiefs don’t ask McDuffie to shadow opposing receivers, but his ability to stay tight in coverage is elite."

PFF was very complimentary of McDuffie, but the last sentence caught my eye. Are they holding him not shadowing opposing team's top wide receivers against him? If he has ranked first in their advanced coverage grades in each of the past two years, it seems logical that he should top the list.

Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has very rarely ever asked one of his CBs to shadow a specific receiver. It especially doesn't make sense in McDuffie's case because of how well he plays in the slot. To ask him to shadow a receiver would be to limit his versatile skillset.

Spagnuolo will likely continue to mix it up with McDuffie, frequently moving him from out on the boundary to in the slot. McDuffie is also lethal as a blitzer, as we've seen on numerous occasions. It remains to be seen if he'll ever get recognized as the league's very best CB, but he will continue to anchor K.C.'s secondary and be the ultimate chess piece for Spagnuolo.