Rams CB Trent McDuffie Talks Donald, Garrett, Stafford, Mahomes & More w/Rich | Full Intervie

Rich has been running a segment called "Is he back yet?" for weeks, and finally had an actual Los Angeles Rams player in the chair to answer it. Trent McDuffie could not help him. "Not that I know of," McDuffie said of Aaron Donald, "but know that we are waiting."

Waiting is the mood in that building, because what McDuffie gets to imagine is genuinely unfair. Donald and Myles Garrett on the same line, with a first-team All-Pro corner behind them.

"I even try to think of it asking Sean McVay and the offensive perspective and talking to Stafford," McDuffie said. "How are you guys even going to do your blocking schemes? Who are you going to slide to? Who are you going to try to double team?" The answer from both was the same. They don't know. It's a problem regardless. "For me sitting on the back end, I'm cheesing just thinking about it."

That's the job as he describes it: give the rush an extra half second, get the ball back to the offense, repeat. McDuffie is well versed in it, having spent four years handing possessions back to Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City.

Garrett up close looks like what the résumé says. "He's an animal. He's a freak," McDuffie said. "He's like three yards in the backfield off of one step." What impressed him more was the absence of ego. Garrett isn't chasing sacks, he said, and nobody on that roster is playing for themselves.

Here is the wrinkle worth watching. Garrett has almost never played with a fourth-quarter lead. McDuffie has. A trailing opponent runs the ball and drains the clock, which strips a pass rusher of chances. "We could just tell Myles Garrett, just go rush. Just go do what you got to do, get in the backfield, and really let's just end this game."

As for how a 25-year-old first-team All-Pro came available, McDuffie was straightforward. The Chiefs had to situate their roster, money came into it, and around combine time his agent got the sense Kansas City wanted to trade him. He was frustrated, mostly because nobody told him anything.

"It was kind of like went to bed one day not knowing and woke up the next day as a Ram," he said. "So it really was a 360 turnaround in like four days."

Nationally, the conversation has been Garrett, then Donald, then the April narrative that drafting Ty Simpson left Matthew Stafford stranded by a front office that didn't help him. Rich pushed on whether McDuffie wanted to show everybody. As a competitor, sure. "I thought I was one of the cornerstone pieces," he said. But his answer kept circling back to a locker room with Davante Adams, Stafford and Garrett in year 10 still doing the small things correctly. "I'm bringing Trent McDuffie, but Trent McDuffie also comes with buying into the team."

On Stafford, he did not hedge. "He's the best." Every coverage, every disguise, Stafford has seen it, attacked it and broken it down. "One, two, three, ball out. One, two, three, ball out. He's looking you off to throw the other way."

Then there is the first Thursday in December, when he faces his former team. Would he dare say something to Mahomes? "Only cuz it's Pat, I'm going to have to poke a little bit." His idea of poking is a blitz and a friendly heads-up: hey Pat, you know I'm here.

He is fine with that. Mahomes, he said, loves the talking. It fires him up.