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The Kansas City Chiefs watched Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson depart for Los Angeles this offseason. The team appears confident in Kristian Fulton and Nohl Williams, but those two cornerbacks played fewer than 700 combined snaps in 2025, while McDuffie and Watson combined for more than 1,500. The Chiefs need to add more cornerback talent during the 2026 NFL Draft.
Tennessee Volunteers cornerback Jermod McCoy might be the best player in the 2026 NFL Draft. Unfortunately, he suffered a torn ACL in January of 2025 that cost him all of last season and part of the pre-draft process. The injury served as a massive setback for McCoy, whom many viewed as a consensus future top-five prospect.
If McCoy returns to his pre-injury form, selecting him with the ninth overall pick would represent one of the biggest steals in the class. McCoy is the most talented cornerback prospect to enter the NFL since Derek Stingley Jr. in 2022, but he might slip below Mansoor Delane due to the injury.
McCoy is a twitchy and fluid athlete capable of mirroring complex releases in press coverage. His hips swivel effortlessly, allowing him to get in phase early in the route and remain in the receiver’s hip pocket throughout the play. He needs to improve his strike timing and hand usage in press to disrupt and re-route more players at the line of scrimmage.
McCoy smothers routes with his ability to suddenly decelerate and change directions to allow no separation at the top of the stem. This ability, combined with his closing burst, makes him a threat to undercut comebacks and curls for interceptions. When in off-man or zone, McCoy switches from his half-turn to drive downhill in one fluid motion.
McCoy’s speed prevents receivers from testing him downfield. He drives deep fades toward the sideline to take away throwing windows. For the next step in McCoy’s development, he needs to improve how he plays the wide receiver’s hands to force more incompletions downfield.
McCoy’s loose movement skills and closing burst help him shrink throwing windows at the top of the stem and contest routes many cornerbacks fail to reach. He shows surprising maturity on extended plays. Instead of scrambling when the quarterback breaks the pocket, McCoy stays with his assignment, decreasing the likelihood of a big play on a busted coverage.
McCoy’s processing and trigger have room to improve in zone coverage, but he makes smooth transitions against multi-layered route concepts. Some of the plays he made in zone last year, including an interception against Oklahoma, suggest he will develop into a scheme-transcendent corner.
McCoy stacks blockers on the perimeter in run defense but doesn’t have the play strength and developed block shedding technique to create high-impact plays. He lacks the build and skill set to become a significant force in run defense but is a willing contributor with room for growth.
This article originally appeared on Chiefs Wire: 2026 NFL Draft scouting report: Tennessee Volunteers CB Jermod McCoy
Continue reading...
Tennessee Volunteers cornerback Jermod McCoy might be the best player in the 2026 NFL Draft. Unfortunately, he suffered a torn ACL in January of 2025 that cost him all of last season and part of the pre-draft process. The injury served as a massive setback for McCoy, whom many viewed as a consensus future top-five prospect.
If McCoy returns to his pre-injury form, selecting him with the ninth overall pick would represent one of the biggest steals in the class. McCoy is the most talented cornerback prospect to enter the NFL since Derek Stingley Jr. in 2022, but he might slip below Mansoor Delane due to the injury.
McCoy is a twitchy and fluid athlete capable of mirroring complex releases in press coverage. His hips swivel effortlessly, allowing him to get in phase early in the route and remain in the receiver’s hip pocket throughout the play. He needs to improve his strike timing and hand usage in press to disrupt and re-route more players at the line of scrimmage.
McCoy smothers routes with his ability to suddenly decelerate and change directions to allow no separation at the top of the stem. This ability, combined with his closing burst, makes him a threat to undercut comebacks and curls for interceptions. When in off-man or zone, McCoy switches from his half-turn to drive downhill in one fluid motion.
McCoy’s speed prevents receivers from testing him downfield. He drives deep fades toward the sideline to take away throwing windows. For the next step in McCoy’s development, he needs to improve how he plays the wide receiver’s hands to force more incompletions downfield.
McCoy’s loose movement skills and closing burst help him shrink throwing windows at the top of the stem and contest routes many cornerbacks fail to reach. He shows surprising maturity on extended plays. Instead of scrambling when the quarterback breaks the pocket, McCoy stays with his assignment, decreasing the likelihood of a big play on a busted coverage.
McCoy’s processing and trigger have room to improve in zone coverage, but he makes smooth transitions against multi-layered route concepts. Some of the plays he made in zone last year, including an interception against Oklahoma, suggest he will develop into a scheme-transcendent corner.
McCoy stacks blockers on the perimeter in run defense but doesn’t have the play strength and developed block shedding technique to create high-impact plays. He lacks the build and skill set to become a significant force in run defense but is a willing contributor with room for growth.
This article originally appeared on Chiefs Wire: 2026 NFL Draft scouting report: Tennessee Volunteers CB Jermod McCoy
Continue reading...
